


Pull me out from inside

by thesaddestboner



Series: in the shadows [6]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Angst, Awkwardness, Community: rpf_big_bang, Detroit Tigers, F/M, Fade to Black, Family, Gender or Sex Swap, Non-Famous Family Members As Characters, mention of family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-24
Updated: 2011-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesaddestboner/pseuds/thesaddestboner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The earth hadn’t stopped spinning when Rick disappeared.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pull me out from inside

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the [this ’verse](http://benched.livejournal.com/tag/'verse:%20girl!porcello). You’re probably best served by reading the earlier fics first, or else this won’t make a whit of sense. This fic includes reconstituted and scavenged bits from a [previously written piece](http://benched.livejournal.com/176017.html). Also, let’s say this takes place during an alternate 2011 season.
> 
> Many, many thanks to [**noshootingstars**](http://noshootingstars.livejournal.com/), [**inplayruns**](http://inplayruns.livejournal.com/), [**crimsonkitty88**](http://crimsonkitty88.livejournal.com/), [**owllover711**](http://owllover711.livejournal.com/), and [**shades_of_hades**](http://shades_of_hades.livejournal.com/)—to name just a few—for the handholding and advice. Additional thanks to [**inplayruns**](http://inplayruns.livejournal.com/) and my Anonymous Friend for betaing.
> 
> Also thanks to everyone to offered encouragement, constructive criticism, praise, etc. I clearly wouldn’t be able to do this without you. And a shoutout to the unsuspecting Twitter folks who unknowingly did research for me. :P Title from “Colorblind,” by Counting Crows.
> 
> Check out [](http://shades-of-hades.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**shades_of_hades**](http://shades-of-hades.dreamwidth.org/)' artwork [here](http://shades-of-hades.dreamwidth.org/79384.html) (locked on DW).
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/thesaddestboner) and [tumblr](http://saddestboner.tumblr.com).

>   
> 
> 
> “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” — J.D. Salinger  
> 

Rick woke to a funny feeling crawling across his skin.

He groaned, reached out and grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand, squinted at it and blinked the sleep out of his eyes. **3:34:14 AM.** Rick slammed the phone back down and shoved his head under a pillow.

A hand landed on his back and slipped under his tank top. Rubbed in slow, gentle circles. “Mmph?”

Rick lifted the pillow and rolled onto his side. “Huh?”

Max pulled his arm back and regarded him sleepily, with heavy-lidded eyes. “You okay?”

“Oh,” Rick said, tucking the pillow under his cheek. “I guess. Just a funny feeling I can’t shake.” He waved a hand vaguely, dismissively, in the air. The remnants of a dream clung hazily to his brain like cobwebs, but he couldn’t even begin to piece it together.

Max reached up, caught his hand, and brought it back down. “Funny feeling?”

Rick let Max keep hold of his hand. “Actually, kind of like . . .” He trailed off and fell silent for a few moments before finding his voice again. “Kind of like when this, this whole thing all started.”

Max dropped his hand and sat up, wide awake now. “Do you think—”

“No! I don’t know,” Rick interrupted, wrapping his arms around his pillow. “I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed. I mean, if I was gonna change back, I think it would’ve happened already.”

Max lay back down and found Rick’s hand again with his own. “It’d be nice, though. Wouldn’t it?”

Rick shrugged, squeezed the pillow under his chin. “I guess.”

Max squinted at him, brow furrowing. “What do you mean _you guess_? Isn’t that what you’ve been dreaming about since you changed?”

Rick feigned glancing at the clock on the nightstand. “Oh, look. It’s a quarter to four. And you have a game to pitch in the afternoon.” He shoved his head back under the pillow, effectively ending the discussion.

He felt Max sigh next to him. Max knew better than to fight Rick when he got like this, though, and Rick appreciated that he didn’t pry or push.

Max shifted next to him in bed and tugged the covers back over them. A hand wrapped loosely in Rick’s hair, and the tips of Max’s fingers brushed against the back of his neck. Rick scooted a little closer and dropped his head on Max’s chest and he curled his arm around Rick’s shoulders. They always slept like that, wrapped up in one another like they were afraid the other one wouldn’t be there when they woke.

Sleep tugged at Rick like gravity, and he gave in to it willingly.

The unsettling feeling was still there, though—itching just under the surface of his skin—as Rick drifted back to sleep.

-

Rick couldn’t really pinpoint the exact date when he realized he was _used_ to being Erica Dente—no one except Max knew why he picked that name and no one would ever think to put two and two together—and, honestly, it didn’t bother him as much as he would have thought.

Maybe he would have let it eat at him before, gnaw at his insides slowly until he felt sick to his stomach and could practically taste the bitterness at the back of his throat.

Not now, though.

Now, he was traveling with Max on the road. The guys joked around good-naturedly, called Max ‘whipped,’ but Rick didn’t think he minded. They spent most of Max’s free time together in his hotel room, indulging in room service and watching Pay-Per-View movies. It wasn’t really any different from what they did when Max was home, but Rick was okay with that. He liked the routine. Losing his identity suddenly and unexpectedly had made him come to appreciate stability, routine. Funny how that happened.

The team was in New York to open the season, just little over an hour’s drive from home. When he heard his family was going to be in attendance he’d insisted—in the face of common sense—on being there in the visitors’ family section. He’d be two rows, maybe even a row away from the family he hadn’t seen in nearly half a year.

“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?” Max dumped the contents of his carry-on on the bed and picked up what looked like a crumpled business card. He turned it over, examined it briefly, and tossed it aside.

“It’s not like I’m gonna go up to them and introduce myself,” Rick said, stepping away from the hotel room door and knocking it shut with his heel. He sat on the end of the bed and clasped his hands in his lap, watched as Max sifted through the stuff he’d dumped out of his bag.

“It wouldn’t be too hard for you?” Max retrieved the business card and pretended to study it intently, lines furrowing between his eyebrows.

Rick glanced down, fiddled with a loose thread at the hem of his shirt, and shrugged. “I thought maybe I could see them. You know? Not say anything. Just see them.”

“I’m sorry,” Max said. When Rick looked up, he diverted his gaze to the mess on the bed.

“It’s not your fault.” Rick glanced over his shoulder, at the pile of stuff, and continued to worry at the loose thread. He dragged a foot back and forth over the coarse, nubbly carpet.

Max nudged the pile over and sat next to Rick, close enough so that their shoulders and knees bumped. “I won’t stop you.”

“I know,” Rick said. “I think it’ll be good for me to see them. See them moving on, you know?”

Max curled a hand around Rick’s knee and squeezed gently. “Yeah.” He left his hand on Rick’s knee.

“Yeah,” Rick echoed.

-

Rick ended up sandwiched between Justin Verlander’s fiancée Emily and Ryan Perry’s girlfriend Vanessa for most of the game. They were good people and fun to hang around with, but Rick couldn’t possibly have cared less about their insipid conversations, and he suspected they knew it.

Really, he kind of got the impression that most of the wives and girlfriends either didn’t like him or just found him weird and unapproachable. It seemed fitting, all things considered, but still. He’d never gone out of his way to alienate them. They must have just sensed he was different, and it made him the weak link of the group or something.

“Justin took me to the Apple store yesterday,” Emily announced as she chowed down on a foil-wrapped Yankee Stadium hot dog. “I found the _cutest_ hot pink Kate Spade iPhone case. It was only thirty-five dollars! Can you imagine?”

“I’m _so_ jealous! I’ve been trying to get Ryan to get me one of those for months but he keeps saying no, it’s a waste of money,” Vanessa exclaimed, with a laugh. “He’s such a _guy_.”

Rick checked out of the conversation and slumped in his seat. He focused intently on the scorecard in his lap and penciled in _Verlander #35_ under the starting lineup.

“ _Boys_ just don’t understand,” Emily sighed, crinkling her foil wrapper into a ball. “Is it really any different than Justin buying himself racing seat covers for his Porsche? I don’t think so.”

“Racing seat covers?” Rick glanced up, pencil poised. Now, that sounded like something he might actually be interested in.

“He got ’em ’cause they have flames on ’em.” Emily looked disgusted, face scrunched up like she’d just sucked on a lemon, but Rick thought they actually sounded kind of cool.

Verlander sprinted out of the visitors’ dugout then to a mix of cheers and boos, and Emily obliged him with muffled, mittened applause. Verlander paused to grin and wink and tip the brim of his cap in their direction before taking to the mound.

Max was next, poking his head out of the dugout and scanning the surrounding crowd. Rick watched, waited for him to spot him. Max leaned back against the padded blue railing, looking around, head on a swivel, until he found Rick and they locked gazes. Rick could feel a smile forming on his lips and Max smiled too, tipped his cap at Rick and ducked back into the dugout.

“You guys are too cute.” Vanessa said. She sighed, almost dreamily, before reaching out and tugging on Rick’s hand, giving him a conspiratorial wink. “You guys kind of remind me of Ry and me when we first started going out.”

Rick contemplated carefully extracting his hand out of her grip, but decided it would be rude. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, just seems like he can’t get enough of you. And considering you guys’ve been going out for a little while already, that’s a good thing.” She smiled benevolently upon Rick, like he should have been thankful she’d chosen to share this nugget of wisdom with him.

Rick finally freed his hand from Vanessa’s, offering her a flimsy half-smile. “Thanks. I guess.”

Vanessa laughed and rolled her eyes, clasping gloved hands in her lap. “Jeez, Erica, learn how to take a compliment.”

Rick sank back in his seat and studied the crowd as nonchalantly as he possibly could, hoping for a glimpse of his family, while Emily and Vanessa launched into a conversation about yet another subject he didn’t care about.

He spotted his mom and brother Jake sitting in the other end of the visitors’ section, decked out in road grays, family passes hanging around their necks on plastic cords.

His mom looked tired and way older than he remembered, blond hair clipped back with barrettes, face scrubbed free of makeup. Jake looked like he’d put on a considerable amount of weight, and they were both pale, waxy, exhausted.

Rick fought the urge to go over and introduce himself. What would he have said, anyway? _Hi, I’m your missing son’s teammate’s girlfriend_? _Hi, I'm your missing_ son _?_

Emily must have seen him looking because she put a hand on his arm and made a sad clucking sound with her teeth and tongue. “This has gotta be so hard for them, with Rick not being here.”

“That’s Jake, right? Rick’s brother?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level.

“Yeah,” Emily said. “I think he goes to school around here. At least that’s what Justin told me.”

Rick looked back at his kid brother and wondered what else there was he didn’t know about him, now that he’d been gone for so long. He studied the rings under his mom’s eyes, wondered idly if you could count them like rings on a tree.

“They kind of look alike,” he said to Emily. “Rick and Jake.”

“I guess,” Emily said, shrugging and dropping her hand from Rick’s arm. “I think Rick’s cuter though, he—” She cut herself short, pressed a hand over her mouth. The implications behind the awkward pause hammered against the inside of Rick’s ribcage. “I can’t believe I did that.”

Vanessa hummed in agreement as she picked through a brown paper bag of roasted peanuts. “Ryan does that all the time. But I think he really does believe Rick’s still—you know.” She pulled out a shelled peanut and popped it in her mouth.

“Maybe he is,” Rick said, twirling his pencil between his fingers.

Vanessa sighed and stuffed the bag of peanuts in her plastic cup holder. “I’ve had this conversation with Ry a million times,” she said, dragging a hand in her hair, getting salt and crumbly flecks of peanut shell caught in the long, dark strands. “He keeps saying Rick has to be out there. I think it makes him feel better, you know? Thinking Rick’s alive and all.”

“No one really knows what happened to him though,” Rick said, glancing out to the field. Verlander was going through his final warmup tosses, his movements easy and fluid, arms and legs flying. He kind of looked like a big, flightless bird.

The sun hit him in a way that made him look golden out there on the Yankee Stadium mound.

Rick glanced down at his scorecard, unseeingly. “Maybe he just—just got lost or something.”

Emily sat back and slid her sunglasses out of her hair and down over her eyes. “If it helps you guys sleep at night, why not?”

Rick looked back up and watched as the ball came out of Verlander’s hand, felt his fingertips itch, felt phantom seams and leather under his touch. Rick’s own arm burned a little at the memory of throwing a ball, and he rubbed at his elbow. His whole right arm ached like a phantom limb that was somehow still attached.

-

They ended up winning 3-1 on the strength of a two-run, tie-breaking Victor Martinez blast into the short porch in right in the seventh inning. Verlander didn’t get the victory—that went to Phil Coke, who’d made it something of a habit to vulture up wins the previous season and was apparently continuing that trend into the new year—but he pitched well and got a quality start for his troubles.

After the game, a bunch of them went to a divey bar that Coke picked out to celebrate the victory. Rick tried to beg off, but Emily and Vanessa cornered him and he couldn’t very well say no. Later, when Max asked, he told him it was Emily’s crazy eyes that made him say yes, and they’d laughed about it. Honestly, Rick could never shake the fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach that Emily knew the truth about him, as irrational as that thought was.

Somehow, Rick ended up at the bar alone, separated from the rest of the group. He could see the top of Verlander’s spiky hair standing tall amongst bar patrons on the dance floor, but that was it.

One drink turned into two drinks turned into shots turned into hard liquor, and suddenly everyone at the bar sounded like the adults in the _Peanuts_ cartoons and his head felt like a balloon on a string.

Rick slammed back his final shot and staggered away from the bar, thumping solidly into someone else’s chest.

“Hey, sorry,” he said, putting a hand out.

“Erica, you okay?” Ryan—of course it was Ryan, of fucking course—put a hand on Rick’s shoulder and held him at arm’s distance. “Whoa, you’re totally wasted. Where’s Max?”

Rick swayed unsteadily, wrapping his fingers in the front of Ryan’s black band tee. “Is this poly cotton blend?” He tugged at Ryan’s shirt.

“It’s just a shirt,” Ryan said, prying Rick’s fingers out of the shirt. “Let’s go find Max.”

“I don’t wanna find Max,” Rick said, staggering, grabbing hold of Ryan’s pitching arm. “I wanna dance.” He tried to twirl Ryan, but he steadfastly stood his ground.

Rick’s fingers were pale against the myriad inked designs on Ryan’s forearm. Rick dragged a fingernail down the curve of Ryan’s wrist bone, along the edges of one of his tattoos. Ryan jerked his arm away.

“Why not? I’m sure he’s been looking for you,” Ryan said.

“Let him keep looking.” Rick peered over Ryan’s shoulder and spotted Max across the dance floor. He wondered if his mom and brother were here too, if they were back at the hotel, or what.

“Are you sure you’re—”

“I’m fine.” Rick shoved away from Ryan and brushed his messy hair away from his face. “I just had a little too much to drink, that’s all.”

Ryan regarded him skeptically, lips sucked in. He shoved his hands deeply into his pockets and turned to scan the dance floor. “Okay. Well.”

Rick looked up at the back of Ryan’s head—somehow the asshole had gained five inches on him and Rick had lost his height advantage—and squinted into the flashing, multi-colored strobe lights. “Do you think he sees in colors?”

“What?” Ryan whipped around toward Rick, confusion written all over his face.

“Max. Do you think he sees in blue and brown? Or do you think he sees things like the rest of us?” This question had made sense in Rick’s head, but now that he’d said it out loud, it sounded nonsensical. He tried not to let his uncertainty show.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Ryan said. “I think he sees regular. But I wouldn’t know about that, I’m not a doctor. You should probably ask _him_.”

“I would, but—” Rick paused.

“But?” Ryan prompted him.

“Seems weird to ask him that.” Rick glanced back to where he’d last seen Max, but he was gone now. “You’d think as his _girlfriend_ I’d already know all the most important details. His innermost secrets.” Rick laughed wryly at how melodramatic he’d made that sound.

Ryan gave him a funny look that Rick couldn’t decipher, one eyebrow hiked in question. “Why? I’ve been with Vanessa for a few years, we’re talking marriage, and there’s still things I _know_ I don’t know about. Her _innermost secrets_.”

“I don’t know. Max knows pretty much everything about me. He made the effort,” Rick said.

“And you haven’t done the same for him?” Ryan asked.

Rick shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you saying I don’t care as much as he does?”

“I didn’t say that, Erica,” Ryan said quietly.

“I do,” Rick insisted.

“Okay.” Ryan looked at him again, deep crease forming between his eyebrows as he worked something over in his head. Finally, he said, “You guys’ve been together for a while. Are you just now figuring out you’re unhappy?”

“I’m not unhappy. Not with him, I guess.”

“But you’re unhappy,” Ryan concluded.

Rick dropped his arms and dug his fingers into the material of the skirt he was wearing. It wasn’t his skirt—it was Emily’s and a little on the small side, but she’d lent it to him for the night since he didn’t have any appropriate bar-hopping gear—and the heeled sandals he had on were Vanessa’s. He felt like he was someone else, which was silly because the someone else who was wearing a borrowed skirt and heels was the person he was supposed to be now.

“I guess,” he said after an uncomfortable moment of silence. He opened his hands and flattened the soft, silky material against his thighs. “It’s not a big deal, though. It’s nothing I can’t handle.”

Ryan nodded, but his eyes and the downturned corners of his mouth said he didn’t believe Rick. “Uh huh.”

“Fine, don’t believe me. I don’t care.” Rick looked around, smoothing his hands through his messy hair some more.

Jake was there, at the other end of the bar, chatting away with Verlander and Emily. He still had the laminated family pass hanging from his neck. For a split second, Rick thought about calling out to him before remembering who he was now, who he was supposed to be.

Rick’s eyes grew tight and itchy, and his chest ached. He reached up and rubbed it away.

“You okay?” Ryan asked, touching Rick’s shoulder lightly.

“I’m fine,” Rick said, shying away from Ryan’s touch as though it burned. “Just had too much to drink.”

“You look like you just saw a ghost.” Ryan dropped his arm.

“It’s nothing,” Rick said, keeping his hand over his heart. “Acid reflux.”

Jake turned then, smiling at something Verlander had said, and his eyes met Rick’s. Something flashed briefly in Jake’s eyes and Rick allowed himself to wonder if his brother recognized him, if he felt the tug of a psychic familial link. After a few seconds, he looked away and Rick exhaled deeply. He couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or relieved that Jake hadn’t recognized him.

“That’s Rick’s brother,” Ryan said, tilting his head toward Rick, filling in the awkward silence with his chatter. “Him and his mom came along on the roadtrip. Team thought it’d be nice to give them a little vacation away from—from everything with Rick.”

“That’s nice,” he said. “Rick’s dad and other brother couldn’t make it?”

Ryan shoved his hands into his pockets. “Think they both had to work. The whole family’s coming out later in the year when the Mets come to town, I heard.” Ryan flagged down a bartender for a refill and handed over an empty glass.

Rick felt a smile flicker faintly across his face. In his childhood home, a poster of Ray Knight scoring that famous run in the 1986 World Series was taped to his bedroom wall.

He turned and patted his hands on the sleek lacquer countertop, faced his reflection in the wide mirror behind the bar.

Ryan flagged down a bartender and ordered a drink. When he was done, he turned back to Rick. “Why the game of Twenty Questions anyways? You didn’t know Rick,” he said, without malice. Rather, he sounded curious.

Rick glanced over at him. “Max talks about him a lot,” he said, diverting his attention to his drink. He tipped the glass and drained what was left in a single swallow. Whatever it was—he couldn’t remember what he’d ordered—burned down quickly.

Ryan snuffed lightly. “Max. Right. Sorry, but I find that a bit hard to believe.”

“Why?” Rick asked, trying not to sound too nosy.

“For one, he didn’t even come to the service, even though he was invited. And second, he never seemed that upset. I’m not saying he didn’t care, I’m _not_ saying that,” Ryan said, waving away the implications with a flutter of his hand. “It’s just—it’s just weird, is all.”

Suddenly, like an unexpected fastball to the ribs, Rick wanted to be done with this conversation before he said something stupid, something he couldn’t take back. He ordered another drink and opened his purse, fumbled around in it as an excuse to avoid looking at Ryan.

“He had his reasons,” Rick muttered.

Ryan sighed and stirred a plastic straw in his drink. “I’m sure he did.”

Rick turned to look for Max. He was winding his way through the crowd toward the bar, holding an empty shot glass over his head. One of his shirttails had come untucked from his jeans. He looked drunk and happy.

Max staggered dramatically out of the crowd and slid in between Rick and Ryan, grabbed Rick up in a big, rib-crushing hug.

Definitely drunk.

“Hey there.”

Rick turned his head so that his face wasn’t squashed into his shoulder. “How drunk are you?” The damp, empty shot glass that was still in Max’s hand was forming a wet spot between Rick’s shoulders.

“I lost a bet.” Max pressed his nose into the shell of Rick’s ear.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Rick could see Ryan over Max’s shoulder, scanning the crowd, probably searching for Vanessa.

“Oh.” Rick could practically hear the gears in Max’s brain whirling away. “I had a bunch of shots. Then Verlander dared me to do Irish Car Bombs with him ’cause he didn’t think I had the stones or something. I showed him.”

“Good God.” Rick closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Max smelled heavily of booze and, beneath that, the hint of soap and cologne. “I think it’s time to go.”

“ ’kay, ’kay, you win.” Max stepped back and disentangled himself from Rick, held him at arm’s length. “You’re so beautiful.”

Rick blinked at him. He hadn’t been expecting that. He patted Max once, twice on the chest. “All that booze must have put you in a good mood, huh?”

Max reached out as if to caress Rick’s cheek before his fingers spasmed and he let his arm drop to his side. “I guess so.”

“Okay, Romeo. Let’s go.” Rick patted him on the chest again and pushed him in the general direction of the door.

Max let himself be pushed. “I don’t wanna be Romeo, Ricky, he died.”

Rick rolled his eyes as he steered him through the crowd. “We can argue about it later.”

-

Max collapsed almost immediately into bed, fully clothed, and rolled onto his back, stretching out like a cat in a sunspot. Rick realized he was still clutching the shot glass and crawled over him, plucked it out of his hand and set it on the nightstand.

“You smell nice,” Max mumbled, turning his head and pressing his nose against Rick’s neck.

Rick sat back and flicked him between the eyebrows just because. “And you smell like you jumped into a pool of booze.”

“I think maybe I did.” Max slid a hand slowly up Rick’s thigh before Rick intercepted it.

“Nice try, but you’re drunk. Pass out now.” Rick wrapped his fingers around Max’s thumb and tugged.

“Mm, nope.” Max forced his eyes open and tried to focus on Rick.

Rick let go of his hand and poked a finger in the center of his chest. “Go to sleep.”

“Why you so dead set on getting me to sleep, huh.” Max put his hand back in place, ran it up Rick’s thigh slowly and left it to rest on his hip.

Rick smiled. “No reason.” He ducked his head and kissed Max.

Max’s unshaven cheek was rough and sandpapery under Rick’s fingers, and his lips tasted cool and peppermint-y. Rick pushed his tongue into his mouth and Max responded in kind as he wrapped a warm hand around the back of Rick’s neck and kneaded gently.

When Rick pulled back, a strand of his hair got caught in the corner of Max’s mouth and he brushed it away with his thumb. Max smiled at him, slow and lazy, still obviously drunk. He slid his hand back in place on Rick’s hip.

“What?” Max rubbed his thumb over the knob of Rick’s hipbone.

“Nothing.” Rick kissed him again. “Tired yet?”

“Not at all.” Max yawned.

“Uh huh, likely story.” Rick rolled onto his back next to Max and pressed his hands flat against his stomach.

Max _hm_ ed and kicked off his shoes, burrowed under the covers fully clothed. “Guess you win this round.”

Rick followed suit and pillowed his head on Max’s shoulder. He closed his eyes. Max’s cheek rasped against his forehead. “Guess I do.”

-

An invitation to the “First Annual Frederick Alfred Porcello III Foundation’s Better Halves Charity Softball Game!!” arrived in the mail a few days later.

If he’d had a choice, he never would have let them start a charity in the first place. Charities were for corporations trying to look good in the public eye or for sick kids, _not_ for someone like Rick.

Even the name was disgusting: The Frederick Alfred Porcello III Foundation. It made his skin crawl. He figured it was probably his mom’s idea, because she was the only one who ever whipped out the full name on him. It was a family tradition, all those “freds,” his dad had told him once. When Rick had a son, Dad said, he would name him Frederick Alfred IV, and his son would name _his_ son Frederick Alfred V, and so on. Right now, however, it wasn’t looking good for Rick’s hypothetical progeny.

He stared down at photocopy of what had been his family’s last Christmas photo together. The family cabin up north in Vermont, Mom and Dad by the fireplace, smiling as they looked over their brood. Zach, Zach’s girlfriend, Rick and Jake in matching, hideously ugly, ill-fitting Christmas sweaters, standing in front of an ornately decorated fir.

A few weeks later, Rick—well, Rick wasn’t Rick anymore.

He kept the sweater, though.

Rick scanned the invitation briefly before letting it flutter to the kitchen counter.

“Oh, I guess you saw that. I was gonna toss it.” Max stepped up behind Rick, picked it up off the counter, and looked at the picture.

“You’re not going to participate?” Rick snagged the invitation out of his hand and started reading. “Players versus their _better halves_. They’ll probably ask you to, regardless.”

“Thought it might be kind of weird,” Max said, shrugging. He went over to the fridge and pulled out a carton of orange juice. “You don’t think that’d be weird? That’s actually something you’d want to do?” He untwisted the cap and took a slug right out of the carton.

Rick made a slight face but turned his attention back to the invitation. His eyes fell on a pixel-y clip art image of a stick figure wielding a giant bat. “I haven’t been on a mound since—since, God, the spring. I haven’t held a ball in my hand when it mattered since _last fall_. Of _course_ I want to do this.”

Max put the cap on the orange juice container and stuck it back in the fridge. He swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and sidled up next to Rick, leaned back against the counter. “I’m up for it if you are.”

The invitation shouted **AUGUST 1ST, 2011** at him in big, bold, curly script. There was more than enough time for him to change his mind.

Rick didn’t expect he would, though.

-

A week later, the team was back in Comerica for their home opener. Max was starting and Rick was stuck in Emily’s wives-and-girlfriends suite with about six or seven other women fighting over cocktail wieners, cheese wedges, and mimosas. Rick hated it. He would have given his right arm to be down in the dugout right then, if only to get away from the piped-in audio and recycled air. There wasn’t any place on earth he least wanted to watch a game from than a luxury suite.

Max threw a few warmup tosses with Avila before stepping off the mound and wandering behind it. Rick pressed a hand against the glass, obscuring the mound from his view. Max crouched down on his haunches and started scratching something in the dirt with his finger.

Emily speared a cheese wedge with a toothpick and popped it into her mouth. “What’s he doing out there,” she asked, around a mouthful of cheese.

Rick turned and glanced over his shoulder at her. “He’s writing something in the dirt.” He looked back at Max, who’d gotten back to his feet and was brushing dirt off his palms. “Looks like it’s something for Rick.”

A camera zoomed in on what Max had scratched in the dirt. **RP #48**. Emily made a tiny, muffled sound behind Rick.

“That’s sweet. They were close, weren’t they? Oh, you wouldn’t know, you weren’t around when Rick was,” she said, reaching out and tugging on Vanessa’s sleeve. “Van, Max and Rick were close, right?”

Vanessa shrugged. “I think so. I don’t really remember.”

Max climbed back on the mound and looked up, around. Everybody probably thought he was just taking a moment to let everything around him sink in. It was a big moment, opening day in Detroit, after all.

Once he found what he was looking for, he tugged down the bill of his cap, dug his hand into his glove, and it was _game on_.

The first pitch, ninety-four mile an hour heat, zipped into Avila’s glove before Getz had a chance to blink. Rick’s fingers tingled with the memory of raised seams and leather, the buzz of adrenaline that came along with gripping a baseball. The umpire rose behind Avila and lifted a fist in the air to signal a strike. Rick touched the cool glass lightly with his fingertips.

Emily’s shrill laughter jerked Rick violently out of his thoughts. “Erica, why don’t you come over and join the conversation?”

Rick glanced over his shoulder at her and shrugged. “That’s all right.  I’m watching the game.”  He gestured to the window.

“Why don’t you sit down then? You’re gonna leave a smudge on the glass,” she said, laughing quietly behind him. Her tone was light, teasing.

Rick tucked his hands in the pockets of the cardigan he was wearing and curled his fingers into fists in the seams. “Am I blocking your view?”

“Not really, but . . . You’re not really gonna watch the whole game like that, are you?”

Rick backed away from the window. An audible roar rose from the capacity crowd; Getz had just been punched out by the umpire and was trudging back to the visitor’s dugout. Max stalked around behind the mound, his stride wide and purposeful. Rick knew how that felt. It had been him only a year before.

Max broke off a perfectly placed slider on his first pitch to the second batter of the game and Rick’s elbow twinged in sympathy.

He finally managed to tear himself away from the window and wandered over to the buffet spread. Limp Greek salad, finger sandwiches, the aforementioned cheese wedges and cocktail wieners, all stuff he wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. He glanced around stealthily; there were no hamburgers, no actual, normal-sized hot dogs, not even soda. Just seltzer, mimosas, decaf coffee. Disgusting. Rick picked up a paper plate, piled it with cheese and carried it over to an empty seat.

The tinny roar of the crowd wafted in on speakers and Rick picked up the play-by-play announcer’s deep, disembodied voice. “—and that’s a one-two-three inning for Max Scherzer. After one half inning of play, this game is scoreless.”

Max marched off the field, glove held high against his chest. He paused briefly and took another glance back toward the mound before skipping into the dugout and down the concrete steps, to the clubhouse.

Rick poked a cheese cube with a toothpick and pushed it around his paper plate listlessly.

The team went meekly in the bottom of the first and Rick groaned along with the crowd; Cabrera would be leading off the bottom of the second with nobody on base. If Ned Yost didn’t hold up four fingers from the Royals’ dugout for an intentional walk, Rick would be shocked.

“ _Just_ inside the bag, down the first base line! Ordoñez overruns it and it’ll get all the way to the wall! He airmails the cutoff man, Butler’s digging for two—he’s in there! Leadoff double!”

Rick looked up at the mounted television screen on the wall; Billy Butler was bent over, hands on his knees, panting hard.

Butler gasping for breath while a coach retrieved his elbow and shin guards dissolved into a replay of the poorly located pitch he’d just clobbered. Max on the mound, driving toward home plate, flying open. Butler connecting with a ball up in the zone, right on the sweet spot. The cement-footed Butler chugging to first and then forcing himself into a second gear when Ordoñez finally retrieved the ball and threw it over the cutoff man’s outstretched glove. Max backing the play up in the infield and snapping the ball in his glove angrily.

“First pitch swinging, Mario, and he got something he liked.”

Rick turned his attention to his food, and then to the inane conversation Emily and Vanessa were having about turtles. Brought on, apparently, by fat Billy Butler hauling ass to second base.

Things fell apart quickly after that and by the time Max had finally gotten things under control, the Royals had pushed four runs across the plate and fans were restless. When Rick glanced around him, he realized he was the only one still paying attention to the game. Emily and Vanessa were huddled together, watching something on Emily’s pink-encased iPhone, and most of the other wives and girlfriends were chatting amongst themselves or texting on their phones.

Rick thought briefly about throwing the window open and making a break for freedom but decided against it. Emily would probably catch him. She was a fucking ninja.

The bats didn’t wake up until the eighth inning, and by then it was already too late. Joakim Soria—and the threat of impending doom in the form of heavy, black rainclouds—sent the sellout crowd dashing for the exits before the final out, hoping to beat traffic.

Rick trailed after Emily and Vanessa, down to field level, where ushers took them deep into the bowels of the stadium, to the family lounge. Don Kelly’s wife, Carrie, was waiting by the entrance with a toddler hanging onto one arm and a Tupperware of cookies tucked into the crook of her other elbow.

“Did you girls get your Porcello Foundation softball invitations?” Carrie asked, smiling brightly. She peeled back the top of her Tupperware and plucked out cookies, offering them up. Rick was the only one who accepted; Emily and Vanessa graciously declined.

“Yeah. I got mine yesterday,” Rick said, nibbling on the cookie. “We’re gonna do it.”

Carrie beamed and turned her attention to Emily and Vanessa. “How about you guys?” She shook the toddler off her arm and pressed the Tupperware lid shut.

“I’d love to, but not this year,” Vanessa said, glancing down and pulling a pair of designer sunglasses out of her purse. She slid them on and shook her long black hair behind her shoulders. “Can’t risk an injury, not with the modeling gig I just got. I think Ryan and his sister are going to do it, though.”

“Justin didn’t wanna do it ’cause he thought it’d be too weird, you know? I think he’s still in denial about Rick and everything. But I’ll work my womanly wiles on him,” Emily promised, winking at Carrie. “He’ll participate.”

“What’s the charity do, exactly?” Rick finished off the cookie and brushed his hands off on his jeans.

Carrie hefted the container of cookies in her arm and bent down to pick up her little boy. “All the money that the foundation raises is going towards the family’s missing person investigation.”

“You mean like a private eye?” Rick asked, shoving his hands back in his pockets to hide the fact they were shaking now.

“Yeah.” Carrie lowered her voice to an almost conspiratorial whisper. “Personally, I don’t think they’re going to find anything, but it can’t hurt.”

Rick twisted his fingers around a loose thread in his pocket. “Why don’t you?”

“I saw on TV that most missing persons cases are resolved in the first forty-eight hours,” Carrie said, smoothing her fingertips through her little boy’s fine, light brown hair. She sighed softly. “Rick’s been gone almost half a year now.”

Rick nodded. A tiny ache of longing throbbed in his chest and he worked on willing it away. “Max told me he was on his way to Mexico or something. Before he disappeared.”

“They never heard from him after that,” Carrie said, nodding along and thinning her lips. The doors to the family entrance opened and she covered up the awkwardness with a cough.

Kelly stepped out and his smile expanded to a full-blown grin when he spotted his wife and son. The two of them linked arms and headed off for the players’ lot.

The doors swung open a second time and Max emerged then, hair still damp and unkempt from the shower, engaged in a conversation with Verlander. When he spotted Rick, a smile spread across his face. Max made a beeline for him, leaving Verlander behind looking nonplussed.

“Hey.” Max hooked an arm around Rick’s shoulders and pressed his mouth against his temple. “Good game, huh?” They’d ended up losing 5-3. Kyle Davies had left in the seventh with a shutout going before the bullpen coughed up three runs. Max hadn’t been sharp at all.

Rick tapped him on the chest. “Your front shoulder was flying open.” He ignored Verlander’s questioningly raised eyebrows, left his hand on Max’s chest. “Threw across your body the whole game, left everything up in the zone.”

Max reached up and slid his hand over Rick’s. “Yeah, I could kind of feel that.” He grinned broadly at Rick. “What would I do without you?”

“You’d probably find yourself back in Toledo,” Rick quipped.

Max laughed good-naturedly and circled Rick’s wrist with his hand. “Nothing a good, long bullpen side-session can’t cure.”

“You guys are coming out for dinner with us, right,” Emily cut in. She’d pulled Verlander to her side and had wrapped her two small hands around his large one. He looked less than excited about the dinner plans Emily was trying to make. “It’ll be me, Justin, Vanessa and Ryan. Whenever Ryan decides to show up.”

“Where?” Max asked, looping an arm around Rick’s shoulders.

“Larco’s,” Emily said, freeing Verlander’s hand to clasp her hands together as if in prayer. “You guys _have_ to come.”

Max looked over at Rick and hiked his eyebrows. “I guess we don’t have a choice.”

Rick would have rather gotten a root canal than gone out to dinner with Emily, Vanessa, Ryan and Verlander, but he forced a smile on his face. “Uh, okay. Sure.”

Emily clapped her hands and Verlander swallowed a groan. “Great! We’ll meet you guys there. How does eight o’ clock sound?”

“Sounds great,” Rick said.

“Excellent! Bye, guys!” Emily and Verlander left hand-in-hand and immediately began arguing.

Max slid a hand around the back of Rick’s neck and squeezed gently. “You ready to go?”

Rick glanced at Vanessa, who was impatiently checking her watch and then, every so often, the doors. For some reason, he wanted to get out of there before Ryan finally showed up. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go.”

Max wrapped his hand around Rick’s and they headed for the players’ lot.

Although it wasn’t even dark out yet—the home opener had been an afternoon game for as long as Rick could remember—the lot was almost completely empty, and the soles of their shoes clacked noisily on the damp concrete. Rick could hear the faint hums of engines in the distance, the blaring of car horns, the screeching of tires fading. Max’s hand was warm and the wind whipping around them and stinging their eyes was cold, blistering.

Max came to a complete standstill and Rick inadvertently jerked his hand out of his grip.

“What is it?” Rick asked, reaching back for Max’s hand.

“Your mom,” Max spit out in a rush.

“ _What_?” Rick blinked at him, confused. For a second he thought Max was making a played out ‘your mom’ joke, but that wasn’t his style. Once he’d gotten over the mental whiplash, he said, “What about her?”

“She came down to the clubhouse today, before the game,” Max said, shoving his hands in his pockets. He dug around a little before he came up with his keys, which he started focusing on intently.

“I didn’t know she was in town,” Rick said, pulling his hand back and wrapping his arms around himself. “How was she?”

Max twirled the keyring around on his finger. “She was—she was kind of a wreck. She was there to talk about the softball thing, rally guys to sign up for it. I said we’d do it.” He glanced up quickly and offered Rick a shaky smile. “You’re cool with that, right? I know you were unsure before, but—”

Rick twisted his mouth in a half-smile. “I’m fine with it. It’s just kinda weird, is all.”

“Rick, we—I can ask out of it. I can—”

“I won’t let you do that,” Rick said, raising his hand to cut him short. “I’ll do the charity thing, okay? I’m a team player.” He rolled his eyes and laughed unenthusiastically at his own joke.

“You don’t have to,” Max said, approaching him carefully, like Rick was a wounded animal. He took Rick’s face in his hands, his touch light, and rubbed his thumb over his cheek before ducking his head to kiss him.

Someone cleared their throat loudly and Rick jerked away, as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t have. Max stepped back, reluctantly, tucking his hands in his pockets. Vanessa and Ryan stood a few feet away, hand in hand.

“Hey guys,” Ryan called out, raising his free hand and waving.

Rick crossed his arms over his chest and tucked his hands into the crooks of his elbows. “Hi.”

“Perry.” Max tipped his fingers at him. “Vanessa.”

Vanessa lifted her sunglasses and used them to push her hair off her forehead. “Erica, I think I need to make you my project.”

“Your what?” Rick asked, hoping he didn’t sound as mortified as he felt.

“I want to give your wardrobe a makeover.” Vanessa reached out and snagged Rick’s hand in hers, tugging him closer, grinning. “We’ll find you something cute to wear for dinner. We can go on a shopping spree!”

Rick glanced back at Max and screamed _save me save me save me_ in his mind, but apparently they hadn’t quite developed that psychic link yet. Max just looked from Rick to Vanessa to Ryan and shrugged.

“That could be fun,” he said.

Rick shot him daggers before looking back over at Vanessa and smiling. “Okay. Why not?”

-

Rick stood between racks of fancy dresses and tried not to look too out of place while Vanessa pawed through them and tried—futilely—to get Rick to try them on.

“How about this one? I think it compliments your coloring.” Vanessa held up a silky olive green _thing_ on a hanger.

Rick gave her a tight smile. “Is that a dress or a scarf?”

Vanessa checked the tag just to be sure. “It’s a dress. I think it’s nice. If you don’t like it, I’ll just get it for myself.” She threw it over her shoulder—along with three other dresses Rick rejected that she’d liked—and began sifting through the stuff on the next rack. “You’re a real pretty girl and you have a great figure. I don’t get why you always hide it behind baggy clothes.”

Rick looked down at the navy cardigan and jeans he was wearing; he happened to think they were a big step up from the oversized Christmas sweater he was wearing when he turned up on Max’s doorstep. Suddenly, he felt self-conscious. Vanessa was beautiful and she knew it, and she dressed like she knew it too. Rick was dressing like his mom.

“I don’t really dress to impress. I dress for comfort,” Rick said, tugging on one of the shiny black buttons on his cardigan.

Vanessa pulled a short red stretchy thing off the rack and held it out. “I think this is nice. It’s dramatic.” She handed it off and turned to the next rack of clothes. “I love clearance sales. You can find pretty much anything.” She grabbed a wide black belt and shoved it at Rick as well.

Rick held the dress up to his chest and examined himself in the floor length mirror. The color was eye-catching but beyond that, Rick didn’t think there was anything remarkable about it.

“I don’t even know what size I wear,” Rick said, folding the dress over his arm.

“When’s the last time you went clothes shopping?” Vanessa added a slinky black number to her pile.

“Probably last Christmas,” Rick said, thinking of the Christmas sweater, currently wrapped around some mementos of his past life and taking up space in a box in the bedroom closet.

“Good Lord, woman.” Vanessa clucked her tongue at Rick and threw another dress over his arm. “Doesn’t Max spoil you? Take you out shopping?”

Rick rolled his eyes. Max spoiled him, but it certainly didn’t involve dress shopping. Max spoiling him involved a mound of dirt and a white pitching rubber he’d managed to get the grounds crew to let him take home, so that he could fashion a mound in the backyard for Rick to pitch from.

Rick shrugged. “Yeah, we find other things to do, though.”

Vanessa nodded, smirking a little. “I bet you do. Go try those on. I’m sure you’ll love them.” She shooed Rick off to the dressing rooms.

He hadn’t been in one of these since he was a little kid and his mom was still taking him back-to-school shopping. It had been a painful experience then, and it wasn’t much better all these years later.

Rick slipped out of his cardigan and jeans and stepped into the little black dress Vanessa had thrown onto his pile. It was a strapless, foofy black thing with a skirt layered like flower petals. Rick hated it. The dress was probably designed to accentuate his figure or something, but he still didn’t have much in the way of hips. The tits somewhat made up for that, but he supposed he owed that more to his Sicilian ancestry than the stupid dress.

“Come on, let me see! I bet it looks hot,” Vanessa called out, sounding strained and impatient.

Rick flicked off door before opening it. Vanessa stood there, arms loaded with dresses and scarves and belts, an expectant look on her face.

“Well?” Rick tugged at one of his bra straps and frowned down at it.

“I think it looks great,” she said.

Rick raised an eyebrow at her and put a hand on his hip. “You’re kidding, right?”

Vanessa leaned forward and draped a white linen scarf around his shoulders. “I’m totally being serious. I think you look great.” She tugged at the scarf a little before stepping back to examine her ‘project.’

Rick turned and studied his reflection in the mirror again. He had his dad’s tall forehead, jawline, and dark hair, but he definitely had his mom’s eyes, full lashes, and mouth. It was weird that seeing himself in this body, in these clothes, was what finally made him notice the resemblance.

Suddenly, he was hit by this wave of intense _longing_. His heart clenched up in his chest and his throat ached.

Rick slipped the scarf from his shoulders and began running it through his fingers. The pretty but sad-eyed woman that stared back at him did the same. He felt detached, like he was watching from above, an out-of-body experience.

“You okay?” Vanessa asked from the doorway, voice tinged with a hint of concern.

“I’m fine.” Rick reached up and tugged at the front of the dress. “I think I’ll buy this one.”

“Did you try on the others?”

Rick picked up his jeans and fished his wallet out of the back pocket. He forced a smile for Vanessa’s benefit. “I’ll take all those too. Nothing like a little retail therapy, huh?”

Vanessa beamed and gathered up the dresses in her arms, placated. “ _Exactly_.”

-

Max, Ryan, Emily and Verlander were already seated and all four of them stared when Rick and Vanessa approached the table they’d picked out for their group. Max and Ryan both shot out of their seats to greet them.

“You look really, really—” Max, usually articulate, fumbled for words. He waved his hand in the air unhelpfully before reaching to scratch at the back of his neck as if he’d meant to do that all along. “You look nice.”

“I feel like a sausage stuffed into a really expensive casing,” Rick mumbled loud enough for only Max to hear. “This stupid dress cost two hundred bucks. I bought three of them, by the way. And two pairs of shoes, too.”

Max laughed and leaned in to embrace Rick, brushing his lips near his ear. “I’m really glad you’re here. Emily and Justin have been bickering all night.” He stepped back, letting his hand slip away, and pulled Rick’s chair out for him.

“Erica, you look so beautiful,” Emily said. She turned to Justin and tapped him on the arm. “Doesn’t she look great, Justin?”

Verlander looked up from his iPhone and gave Emily a deer-in-headlights look. “What?”

“Vanessa and Erica went shopping and got their hair and makeup done,” Emily said, enunciating extra slowly, as if he were hard of hearing, stupid, or both. “Don’t they look great?”

Verlander gave Rick a once-over before looking back over at Emily. “Yeah, you both look real nice.” He glanced at his cell phone and thought better of it, shutting it off and tucking it in his pocket.

Rick rolled his eyes and shrugged the scarf from around his shoulders, turning to drape it over the back of his chair. “Did you guys order?”

“We were waiting for you guys,” Emily said, pulling out two menus and passing them out. “We ordered a round of drinks, though.”

Rick took one of the menus and scanned it. Everything was Italian, expensive, and hard to pronounce, Sicilian roots be damned. “Sweet. I could use a good, stiff drink.”

A hand closed over Rick’s knee under the table and he looked over. Max shot him a side-glance before turning his attention back to his menu and tried to suppress a smirk. He was only mildly successful; Rick could see the corners of his mouth were upturned. He slid his hand under the table and wrapped his fingers around Max’s thumb.

Rick smiled at his menu.

-

Rick stayed home from the roadtrip following the opening homestand. Max had all but begged him to come along, but Rick dug his heels in and resisted—and Max could be very convincing when he wanted to be.

It wasn’t that Rick suddenly didn’t want to spend any time with him or be around the team; it was quite the contrary. He just wanted to be on his own for a little bit, get used to being this strange person—Erica P. Dente, according to the fake driver’s license he’d paid a couple hundred bucks for—without being self-conscious.

Of course, he’d somehow managed to miss the memo that said Ryan was also staying home on this roadtrip because of an eye infection. When he heard Rick was staying home too, he decided they should apparently be buddies while their better halves were out of town—Vanessa was in Vegas for a photoshoot—and go out for drinks.

Rick stirred a red plastic straw in his drink, chasing his ice cubes with it, while Ryan yelled over obnoxiously loud, thumping club music about his stupid eye infection. Which was mostly his own fault because his incessant rubbing had led to scratched corneas.

“The ophthalmologist said rubbing was just making it worse and if I didn’t stop touching it, she’d make me wear an eye patch.” Ryan was working on a bottle of Miller Light. Rick had threatened to ditch him over it, but Ryan was his ride and Rick had caved pretty easily. “The eye patch looked pretty friggin’ cool, though.”

Rick rolled his eyes and picked up his glass, ice cubes clinking. “Good work, Admiral Perry.” He took a sip and set his glass back down on his damp cocktail napkin.

Ryan laughed. “That’s the Navy, Erica.” Ryan leaned back and slung an arm over the back of his seat. They were squeezed into a corner booth, and Ryan’s rangy frame was making things difficult. “I’d be pretty damn intimidating coming out of the bullpen with an eye patch on, though, don’t you think?”

Rick shrugged and ran his finger along the rim of his glass, flicking off condensation. “I dunno, I guess. There’s gotta be a rule against pitching with an eye patch, anyway.”

Hanging out and shooting the shit with Ryan over beers wasn’t as weird as Rick had thought it would be, and he found himself slipping into familiar patterns. The problem was that it was going to have to end at some point. The coach would turn back into a pumpkin, the footmen back into mice. His best friend would turn back into an acquaintance’s boyfriend.

“Probably. There’s rules against everything fun,” Ryan moped dramatically and drained the last of his Miller Light. He thumped the empty bottle down on the tabletop. “Anyways, that’s what’s been up with me. What about you?”

“What _about_ me,” Rick asked, raises his eyebrows at Ryan. “I don’t do anything.”

“Don’t you have a job?” Ryan picked up his bottle and started scratching at the label with his thumbnail.

Rick laughed. “No. I can’t—it’s kind of a long story and I won’t bore you with it, anyway,” he said, waving the very thought off. “My job is being the supportive girlfriend.”

Ryan huffed and put the bottle down again. “That kinda sucks.”

“Why? I don’t mind it,” Rick said, lowering his hand.

“Max doesn’t want you to work?” Ryan asked.

Rick frowned. Something inside him closed down at the mention of Max’s name. “It has nothing to do with him.”

Ryan seemed to sense it too. He threw up his hands, palms out. “All right, all right. I’m just sayin’.”

“Yeah, and you’re wrong,” Rick said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

Ryan nodded and flagged down a waitress for another beer. “Okay. Consider it left,” he grumbled.

Rick looked away and shifted awkwardly in his seat. He could see Emily weaving her way toward them, drink in hand. She was slightly wobbly on her feet, had probably had a ton to drink already.

“Hey guys, what are you doing here?” She was holding a tall glass of something hot pink in one hand. She sipped out of a bendy straw.

“Hey, Emily. We were just having some drinks. Wanna join us?” Ryan sat up straight and squeezed closer to Rick to make room for Emily in their booth.

Emily slid in next to him and set her drink down. “Why aren’t you on the roadtrip?” she asked Rick.

“I decided to stay in Detroit for this one,” Rick said, inching ever so slightly away from Ryan. It wasn’t like he’d never been this close to Ryan before, but he didn’t need anyone else recognizing them and then jumping to conclusions after seeing them sitting so close.

“Where’s Vanessa?” Emily sipped at her drink.

“She’s in Vegas for a shoot,” Ryan said, grinning, chest swelling with pride. “I would’ve gone with her, but I’ve gotta drive down to Toledo in a day or two for rehab.” He gestured to his eyes.

Emily pressed her hands to her face. “That’s _so_ cool. I’m so proud of Vanessa.”

Rick wondered how many of those tall, hot pink drinks she’d already downed before stumbling across their booth. He worked slowly on his own, had been working on it all night. “It really is cool.”

Emily wrapped both hands around her glass and slurped noisily through her long straw. “Are you coming along on the next roadtrip, at least? I’ll be going on that one.”

Rick shrugged. “I guess.” He picked up his drink and finished it in one swallow. It went down easily, tasted like a mix of vodka, Coke and melted ice cubes.

Ryan lifted his butt off his seat and pulled out his wallet. “I gotta get back and start packing for Toledo.” He nodded to Rick. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah, sure. I got the tip.” He pulled some bills out of his pocket, sorted through them, and tossed down a generous tip.

Rick scooted out of the booth and waited for Ryan. Emily looked up at them, bleary-eyed.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, kids,” she sing-songed.

Rick rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry, we won’t.”

The car ride back to the apartment Rick shared with Max was quiet, punctuated occasionally by Ryan’s aimless chatter or the grinding guitar riffs of the nü-metal CD he popped into his CD player for the ride.

Rick found himself studying Ryan’s hands on the steering wheel, the thick pitcher’s calluses on the fingers of his right hand. Rick looked at his own hands; his calluses were starting to fade. He rubbed the fingers of his left hand over his right, felt for the rough, hardened skin that had come from years of gripping a baseball. The skin had already begun to soften. It seemed like a cruel joke that he could lose those too, in addition to everything else that had already been taken away from him.

Ryan cleared his throat and said, “You’re awfully quiet, Erica.” He mercifully thumbed down the volume.

“You’ve been talking enough for both of us,” Rick said, dryly. “I was just deferring to you.”

Ryan shot him a quick look before turning his eyes back to the road. He pulled up to a red light and idled, drummed his hands on the steering wheel. “Something on your mind?” The light turned green and he eased onto the gas.

“Not really,” Rick lied, folding his hands in his lap to keep from poking at his calluses.

“Uh huh,” Ryan said, sounding skeptical. He took a sharp turn and Rick jerked against the seatbelt strap across his chest. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Rick propped an elbow on the armrest and leaned his head against his fist. He could see his apartment building just off in the distance, lit up by the warm orangeish glow of the streetlights.

Ryan pulled into an empty spot in front of the building and put his car in neutral. He unbuckled himself and turned in his seat, toward Rick. “You good to go? Or do you want me to see you in?”

“I’m good,” Rick said, unbuckling himself. “I didn’t have that much to drink.”

Ryan nodded, sucking his lips in and making them disappear. “I’ll see you in anyway. You never know.”

“Dude, I can fend for myself, okay? I don’t need you hovering like . . . I don’t know,” Rick said, maybe a little snappish. He rubbed his fists against his eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s just, I’ll be fine. You don’t need to _see me in_.”

Ryan turned the engine off and plucked the keys out of the ignition. “It’s dark out, you’re alone. I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe. Once I’m gone you can burn me in effigy or whatever.”

“Fine. You win.” Rick got out, kicked the door shut and headed for the entrance. He could hear Ryan’s hurried footsteps behind him. Rick got to the door and waited for him to catch up. “Okay, now that this exercise in chauvinism has been completed . . .”

“Right. Take care, Erica. Tell Max I said hi,” Ryan said, and jogged back down the steps for his car.

Rick stood on the porch, keycard in hand, and looked after him, well after his taillights had faded in the night.

-

A few days later, the team returned from a successful roadtrip to a much-needed off-day. They’d won six of their seven games; the only loss had been Max’s start in Seattle. Rick had tried to stay up to watch the entire game, but Max had been pulled by the fifth inning—he had an ugly final line: four and a third, ten hits, four walks, five earned runs, two strikeouts—and Rick had fallen asleep long before the seventh inning stretch.

He was curled around a pillow in bed, caught between sleep and hazy wakefulness, when the floorboards creaked. Rick rolled onto his side and rubbed at his gritty eyes. Max listed in the doorway, a garment bag over one shoulder and a carry-on clutched in his arms. His suit coat was off and his shirt had come untucked from his slacks.

“Hey.” Max dropped his garment bag and carry-on and padded barefoot over to the bed.

Rick let go of the pillow and sat up, stretching and yawning. “Hey yourself. How long have you been standing there?” He reached out and grabbed hold of Max’s untucked white shirttail, pulling him onto the bed.

Max laughed quietly and flopped onto his back next to Rick. “Just a little bit. Didn’t want to wake you. Failed.”

“It’s okay. I was half-conscious anyway, so . . .” Rick turned his head and pressed his nose against Max’s shoulder.

Max slipped an arm around Rick and rested his mouth in his hair. “Was kind of weird without you,” he mumbled.

“Is that your way of saying you missed me?” Rick asked.

Max hummed. “Maybe.”

“I’ll go on the next roadtrip, promise.” He paused. “I think Emily knows about me.”

“What?” Max rolled on his side so that he and Rick were face to face. Rick reached up to smooth the deep crease between Max’s eyebrows with his thumb. Max closed a hand around Rick’s wrist gently but didn’t pull his hand away.

“I ran into her at the bar. She was acting weird. But then again, she was drunk, so. I dunno.” Rick watched as Max drew his wrist down and kissed his pulse.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he murmured. His breath was warm and damp against Rick’s skin. “There’s no way she could know.”

“I know. It just felt weird, the way she was acting with me and Ryan.” Rick scooted a little closer and rubbed his toes under the back of Max’s pant leg.

Max kissed down Rick’s arm, fingers still wrapped lightly around his wrist. “Hm.”

“Are you even listening,” Rick asked, flexing his fingers.

“Of course.” Max dropped his wrist and raised his head to meet Rick’s gaze. “I just think you’re going to drive yourself crazy. She doesn’t know anything. How could she?”

Rick shrugged. “I dunno, it was just a feeling I had.”

Max wrapped his hand around the back of Rick’s neck and pulled him close, close enough that their lips were almost touching, but he didn’t move to kiss him. He touched Rick’s cheek and trailed his fingertips down, traced his bottom lip with the pad of his thumb.

Rick closed his eyes and brushed his lips gently against Max’s fingers.

Max drew his hand away from Rick’s lips and stroked his fingertips down the side of his neck. His touch was light but deliberate. It was almost as if he were mentally cataloguing all the uninteresting parts of Rick’s body—fingers, wrists, arms, lips, neck—and part of him wanted to ask _why_ because it was kind of strange, but a larger part of him liked the attention.

Max slid down Rick’s body a bit, a big hand curling around his waist, and Rick reached down to pet his hair. He’d let it get a little longer over the winter and hadn’t had his first trim of the season yet. Rick ran his fingers through it and pushed it up off his forehead. When he pulled his hand away, it flopped back into place.

Max pushed Rick’s shirt up and kissed him on the stomach. His stubble was a pleasant, scratchy rasp against Rick’s skin. Rick sat up and tugged his t-shirt off, dropping it over Max’s on the floor. Max knelt back to get a good look at him.

“What?” Rick shrugged his hair over his shoulders and tried not to squirm.

“Nothing.” Max stroked the back of his hand slowly down Rick’s side. His hand stopped at the waistband of Rick’s sweatpants. He nudged them down Rick’s hips and Rick kicked them away. Max crawled between his legs and Rick threw his arms around his neck, pressed his mouth against Max’s and kissed him hard.

Max broke away to kiss Rick under his jawline, a hand moving to his hip. Rick tilted his head back and Max licked a stripe down the side of his neck to the place where his shoulder melted into his collarbone. Rick ran his hands down Max’s shoulders, felt the muscles rippling in his back as he moved over him and braced himself up with one arm.

Rick looked at him, stilled his hands at Max’s hips. “Yes?”

Max closed his eyes. He reopened them slowly, the blue one first and then the brown one. “Wanted to see you with each of my eyes.”

Rick remembered the conversation he’d had with Ryan after the season opener in New York. “Did I look different through one eye as opposed to the other?” He covered Max’s brown eye with his hand. Max’s eyelashes tickled against his palm.

He smiled and turned his head to press his mouth against the center of Rick’s palm. Rick felt the corners of his mouth twist up in a genuine smile. “Nah. You looked the same. You always do.”

Max’s voice was warm, honeyed with fondness. It made Rick’s chest ache, a lot like seeing Jake in the bar did. It kind of made him feel like he’d been knocked just the slightest bit off center, not enough to fall but just enough that his footing was uneven. Rick grabbed onto the back of Max’s neck and pulled him on top of him.

“Oof,” Max said, ever articulate.

Rick laughed and climbed over him, straddling his hips. “Oof?” He pressed his hands against Max’s bare chest.

Max ran his hands up Rick’s arms to cup his elbows. “Oof.”

“You can do better than that.” He rocked his hips against Max’s slowly and smiled when Max’s hands tightened their grip on his elbows ever so slightly.

Max was looking up at him, a tiny smile playing at the corner of his lips. Rick returned the smile and scooted down a little bit, dragging a hand slowly down his chest and opening the first button of his fly, then the next one. Max reached down and caught Rick’s fingers in his own. The skin on the tips of his fingers was rough and thick, and for a split second Rick thought about pulling away.

He didn’t, though. After the moment passed, Rick tugged the zipper down and helped Max slide the jeans down his hips and then completely off. They went on the pile of clothes that had formed on the floor.

Max sat up a little and pulled Rick back into his lap, arms locking loosely around the small of his back. He bent his head and rubbed the tip of his nose against the crook of Rick’s elbow. “You smell nice.”

Rick snorted and pawed at his hair. “Like what?”

“I dunno.” Max made a big show of sniffing his arm. “You just—you have this smell. It’s you. I dunno, I like it.”

Rick butted his chin against the top of Max’s head. “Okay, weirdo.”

Max worried at the inside of Rick’s elbow with his teeth. “Mhm, that’s me.”

Rick scratched between Max’s shoulders and he groaned into Rick’s arm, breath vibrating against his skin. “What else do you like about me?”

“Fishing for compliments?” Max hooked his fingers in Rick’s bra straps and pulled them off his shoulders.

“Oh, you know me.” Rick leaned back enough to tug it down and unclasp it. It dropped between them, and he swiped it away with the back of his hand.

“Okay, well. You’re always so serious—” Rick bit his tongue and resisted making a stupid _Dark Knight_ joke to ruin the moment “—like, around everybody. I mean, this one time, Emily asked me if you even knew how to smile. And I just thought that was so . . . I feel like I’m the only one who gets to see you when you’re not. Serious, I mean.”

Rick turned that over in his head. “That’s what you like about me?”

“No. Well, yeah. I mean, it’s like—” Max paused and lifted his head to meet Rick’s gaze. “I guess I like that I get to see that part of you and not everybody else does.”

“Oh.” Rick wasn’t sure what to think about that, except that it made his heart hurt—in a good way or a bad way, he wasn’t sure yet—just the tiniest bit.

Max tightened his arms around Rick for a split second. “I mean, that’s not the only thing I like about you, obviously. I—”

“No, I know. I guess I wasn’t expecting that,” Rick said.

“I also really like your moles.” Max rubbed his thumb over the two moles between Rick’s eyebrows. “I think that’s kind of how I knew.”

“Knew what?” Rick asked, squeezing his eyes shut before he went cross-eyed.

“That I knew you from somewhere.” Max pulled his hand back.

Rick opened his eyes slowly, blinked. Max came back into focus. “But how?”

“I thought I was being dumb at first, feeling like there was this deep, psychic connection between us or something. Like, oh, here’s this girl who just appeared out of nowhere and I already feel like I’ve known her forever.” Max rubbed at the back of his head as a flush crept up his chest, to his neck. “When you said what happened, it all kind of fell into place even though it shouldn’t have, I shouldn’t have believed you. It was the moles.”

Rick touched his cheek, tipped his head up. Max flashed him a nervous, tight-lipped smile. “Thanks for telling me that,” Rick said.

Max laughed. “You’re welcome, Ricky.”

Rick dropped his hand to Max’s neck and kissed him, pushed his tongue into his mouth. One of Max’s hands moved between their waists, then lower, pushed Rick’s underwear down his hips. Rick lifted a leg and kicked the underwear off. Max’s fingers pressed, rubbed, and Rick pushed his hips against his hand greedily, a low, guttural noise trapped in his throat. He kissed Rick again, teeth catching on his bottom lip.

Max hooked one of his legs with Rick’s and used his weight to flip Rick onto his back. He crawled between Rick’s legs and pushed his thighs apart with his knee.

For a moment, they just stared at each other, breathing hard. Max’s bottom lip was red where Rick had bitten him, and his eyes were dark.

Max grinned lopsidedly at him. “Look at you.”

“What?” Rick asked, laughing breathlessly.

“Just look at you.” Max leaned in and kissed down the side of his neck. He pressed a hand over Rick’s stomach and Rick felt him smile into his shoulder when he maneuvered Max’s hand lower.

“You’re so weird,” Rick said, turning his head, kissing Max behind the ear.

“You _like_ weird.” Max kissed Rick on the shoulder and the side of his neck, as his hand wandered between his legs.

Rick laughed again and kissed the top of his head. “Lucky you.”

Max crawled over Rick and kissed him again. “Lucky me.”

-

After, while Max dozed lightly in a post-sex haze, Rick showered quietly, threw on a large t-shirt of Max’s and went to the family room to watch some TV.

There was nothing on worth watching, of course, so he curled up on a couch cushion under one of Max’s afghans and settled for late-night infomercials.

A couple of middle-aged women who looked like they’d both Botoxed their faces into immovable plastic masks were hawking something called the Genie Bra. Rick didn’t really see what was so remarkable about the bra and why he should pay nearly sixty bucks for three of them, besides the fact it supposedly made any woman’s tits look good no matter the body type.

The infomercial showed a series of sepia-toned “before” shots of “everyday women” with their boobs bulging in the wrong places, or being flattened into pancakes by poorly fitting bras. “After” shots showed the same women in full color, grinning and proudly displaying their breasts in low-cut blouses.

One of the women pushed her chest out and showed off the smooth lines of her body. There were no wrinkles, bulges, or straps showing under her blouse. She smiled brightly, showing off brilliant white teeth. They all looked way too happy over a stupid bra, their mascaraed, raccoon eyes big and their glossy mouths pulled into wincey smiles, eyes wrinkling at the corners.

Rick picked up the phone next to the couch and dialed the number flashing obnoxiously across the screen in bold white font.

A couple minutes later, he’d ordered three Genie Bras—in black, white and “nude”—and charged them to Max’s credit card.

Rick put the phone back, skimmed through a few channels, and settled on a rerun of Futurama.

“Hey.”

Rick looked up. Max leaned against the doorframe and rubbed a hand over his bare chest. His hair was sticking up in a million different directions and he had creases on one side of his face from a pillowcase.

Rick smiled up at him. “Hey,” he said. “I bought three Genie Bras and put them on your card.”

Max blinked. “What?”

“I bought three Genie Bras and—”

“I know,” Max said, cutting in. He came into the family room and sat next to Rick on the couch. He reached out, let a hand curl loosely over Rick’s calf. “Why?”

Rick shrugged. “The women in the informercials looked pretty happy.”

Max glanced at Rick sidelong, hand still on his leg. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Rick pushed his chest out the way that one woman had. “They probably won’t fit. I can just cancel the order.”

“Nah, if you really want them . . .” Max rubbed his thumb up the curve of Rick’s calf slowly. “I bet they’re one-size-fits-all, too.”

Rick looked over at him. Max’s profile was cast in shadows, save the flickers of light from the images on the TV dancing across his pupils. His mouth had the remnants of a smile at the corners. Rick thought about the dresses he’d bought with Vanessa that were hanging in his closet, covered in clear plastic with the price tags still on them. He thought about the cardboard box in his closet, full of mementos from his old life.

“Probably,” Rick said.

Max ran the back of his hand up Rick’s calf slowly. “Yeah.” He turned his hand over and trailed his fingertips back down.

Rick shivered. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing.” Max stilled his hand on Rick’s bare knee. “Does it bother you?”

“Does _what_ bother me?” Rick looked at him again.

“You know, the touching thing.”

Rick shrugged. “No.” He glanced down at Max’s hand on his knee. “I like it.”

Max scratched lightly with his fingernails. “But?”

“Nothing. It’s nice.” Rick leaned into Max and dropped his head on his shoulder, letting his eyes slip shut. Max’s hand stayed on his knee, fingers stroking gently.

“Good. I’m glad.”

Rick felt Max shift and turn toward him, hand slipping away so he could get his arm behind Rick to curl around his waist. Max’s lips were smooth and dry against his temple.

“Hm?” Rick didn’t open his eyes, didn’t move his head from Max’s solid shoulder.

Max squeezed him around the waist, but didn’t say a thing.

-

Rick sat in the thick grass by the third base coach’s box and watched with mild interest as a couple of his teammates’—no, former teammates’ kids wove between their mothers’ legs on the sidelines. One of the women bent down and scooped a squealing child into her arms.

He’d had a few months to digest the news, but he still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of a foundation in his name, or a charity softball game. Somewhere, in New Jersey, his parents were probably putting money aside for a funeral and hoping they’d never have to use it. It was strange to think about.

A sign that bore “The Frederick Alfred Porcello III Foundation Is Proud to Present the Better Halves Charity Softball Game!!!” was fixed to the home dugout railing.

Wives and girlfriends milled about by the dugout in their matching pink, fitted jerseys. The jerseys all had their husbands’ or boyfriends’ names and numbers embroidered on the back and outlined in silver. They were horrible and tacky, and Rick was the only one who didn’t match. Max had grabbed a jersey of his out of the laundry bin for him.

Verlander emerged from the concrete stairwell that led to the clubhouse, punching a fist into a well-worn leather glove. Even though it was just a charity softball game, Verlander had his game face on, and everyone scampered out of his way as he marched down to the far end of the dugout, tucked his mitt under his arm, and got himself a cup of Gatorade.

Emily wandered out a few minutes later, looking resplendent in her pink jersey. She spotted Rick and waved to him enthusiastically. “Erica, we need you in the clubhouse.”

“What? Why?” Rick sat up ramrod straight. He hadn’t been in any clubhouse in months.

“Carrie isn’t feeling well, threw up all over the carpet. We’re subbing you in as the starter,” Emily said, grinning and flapping her hands at him. “Come _on_.”

Rick sighed, pushed himself to his feet, and followed Emily into the dugout and down the narrow steps that led to the clubhouse. One of the doors swung open and Ryan squeezed past them.

“Hey, ladies.” Ryan nodded at them and touched the brim of his cap.

“How’s Carrie doing,” Emily asked, managing to sound both concerned and insincere at the same time.

“Well, the carpet’s gonna need to be, I dunno, steam cleaned. But she seems okay. Ish.” Ryan shrugged. “She’s hanging out in the trainer’s office with Donnie.” He flicked his eyes from Emily to Rick. “You up for the challenge, Erica?”

“Of course,” Rick said, straightening his shoulders, trying to make himself look taller. “I played a little baseball back in the day.”

“Baseball? Don’t you mean softball?” Ryan asked, hiking an eyebrow.

“My grandfather played ball,” Rick said. “He taught me everything.”

Rick had actually only met his grandfather, who’d played for the Indians back in the 1950s, a handful of times before he died after a long illness. It felt kind of good to rewrite history, though. Maybe if he told this version enough times, it would start to feel like the truth.

“Well, that’s cool. Go easy on us, okay?” Ryan winked at the two of them and headed for the dugout.

Rick peeked into the trainer’s room before making his way to the clubhouse; Carrie Kelly was sitting on one of Kevin Rand’s paper-covered examining tables, a Gatorade bottle in one hand. She looked pale, sweaty, was probably dehydrated or something.

“Hey, heard you’re getting the spot start,” Carrie said, pasting a bright smile on her face when she spotted Rick.

“Yeah,” Rick said, smiling back awkwardly. Carrie had been an accomplished athlete in her own right before she got married and started popping out kids. “I’ll try not to screw up too badly.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Carrie said. Kelly said nothing, just smiled and smoothed his wife’s hair away from her forehead like the doting husband he was. “Have you ever pitched before?”

Rick rubbed his fingertips over a blue jean-clad thigh. They itched for cowhide and thread. “A little bit, when I was a kid.”

“It’ll be just like riding a bike, then,” Carrie said, sharing a laugh with her husband.

Rick refrained from rolling his eyes and went to the clubhouse. A few of the girlfriends were crowded around Cabrera’s locker, where his pregnant wife was holding court. A curly-haired little girl was trying to wriggle her way out of Rosangel Cabrera’s lap and a sleeping baby was tucked into the crook of her arm.

Rick smiled to himself and headed for his locker. A freshly pressed home jersey was waiting for him on a wire hanger, and Rick plucked it off. He started to unbutton it to put it on.

“Erica, what are you doing?” Rick looked up. Emily was staring at him, her jaw slack with shock.

He glanced down at the jersey in his hands— **Porcello 48** —and then the locker, and what was in it.

Family photographs had been taped all over the stall at various angles: reunions, family weddings, summer picnics, summer fishing trips up in Vermont, skiing trips in the winter. There were also some pictures he knew he wasn’t around for: a family shot in front of the home dugout. Mom holding a bouquet of flowers, Dad squinting at something off in the distance, just beyond the photographer’s lens. Zach and Jake looking uncomfortable, out of place. Smiles on their faces that didn’t quite reach their eyes.

There was a cardboard box shoved into the corner of his locker, brimming with envelopes, some fresh and crisp, others yellowing from age and exposure. Rick wanted to read them, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t go over well.

Rick knew he should move, but he felt rooted in place. He hadn’t been in this clubhouse, in front of this locker in months, and yet he’d gone right to it like nothing had even changed. It was one of those things that had been hardwired into him: this clubhouse, this locker, the jersey in his hands. And none of it was his anymore.

Someone put a hand on his arm. “Your locker’s over here,” Emily said, pointing. She reached for the jersey he was still holding onto.

“I’ll just put this back. I wasn’t even thinking.” Rick forced out a laugh and grabbed the hanger. He slid the jersey onto it and hung it back up. It dangled there like one of his mom’s white bedsheets on a clothesline.

He let Emily pull him over to Max’s locker. A pink jersey with **Scherzer** outlined in silver on the back was waiting for him, slung over Max’s leather recliner.

“It’s so we all match,” Emily said brightly, picking the jersey up and holding it out.

Rick glanced back at his locker and then at Emily. She smiled encouragingly and thrust the pink jersey at him. He took it from her and turned it, examining the stitching on the back. It was nice and brand new, even had the price tags still on it, but it wasn’t his.

When he looked up, Emily was gone; she’d moved on to someone else. Rick shucked off Max’s jersey in front of his locker and slipped the pink one on. It fit perfectly, and he was kind of unhappy about that. It almost felt like surrender.

Rick sighed and moved slowly up the row of tiny white buttons. When his jersey was all buttoned up, he grabbed the glove that had been set out for him and headed for the dugout.

-

Rick stepped onto the mound and toed the rubber, dirt crunching familiarly under his feet. He could hear the low hum of the crowd and felt the adrenaline skimming in his veins. His heartbeat was thudding loudly enough that he swore he could hear it over the crowd.

He took a moment to look up and take in his surroundings: the grass and dirt under his feet, the vivid blue sky overhead, the fans in the stands. His former teammates in the dugout and leaning over the railing, looking keenly interested. His family watching from a distance in Verlander’s private suite.

Rick could hardly remember the last time he was on a mound with a ball in his hand, pitching meaningful innings. It had been a very long time, and still, everything felt _right_.

Every warmup toss felt perfect, mechanically flawless. It was like the ball was being placed by God himself into the catcher’s mitt, as if Rick hadn’t changed at all.

The catcher—Brennan Boesch’s sister, Cassidy—tugged her face mask down and got into position. Cassidy put down a pinky and tapped it a couple times against the inside of her thigh and shifted into position, tucking her exposed hand behind her right leg.

Verlander meandered into the batter’s box, a navy batting helmet squashed awkwardly down on his head. He squinted out at the mound and tapped the end of his bat in the dirt by home plate. “You sure you don’t wanna come in a few feet?” He took a few showy practice cuts.

Rick kicked at the white rubber and called back to Verlander, as he flipped the ball in his glove. He’d swapped out the standard oversized softball for a regulation Major League baseball. “I just want to throw a couple off the real mound first. Just to see how I do.”

Verlander’s eyes lit up. “You gonna try and go Jackie Mitchell on me, Dente?”

Rick rolled his eyes at Verlander’s bravado. “Try? I am.”

He wrapped his hand around the ball and tucked it into the glove, shifting his fingers into the grip for the sinker. Verlander just smirked and stepped into the batter’s box, pointing the bat out to the mound once before getting into his batting stance.

Rick slowly drew the ball and glove to his waist and took a deep breath. Everything that had been taking up space in his mind, had been making noise in his head went suddenly, peacefully quiet. The only thing he could see was Cassidy and her open, waiting mitt.

Rick kicked his leg high, drew the ball out of his glove, pivoted, and fired home. The ball floated toward the plate and he saw Verlander tighten his hands around his bat, tense up as it approached Cassidy’s glove.

His body still remembered how to throw a fastball—the stitches felt right under his fingertips—but it wasn’t the same. This body was smaller, built differently than his old one, and the ball didn’t go quite where he wanted it to.

It leaked back over the plate and Cassidy had to reach for it. The ball should have been crushed, but Verlander wasn’t expecting it and he swung wildly, all arms, as his lower half bailed out of the batter’s box. The ball darted into Cassidy’s mitt with a satisfying thud.

Verlander looked up, eyes as big as dinner plates, and pointed the end of his bat out to Rick. “Where’d you learn to throw like that?”

Rick rested his glove on his hip. “Max and I have been working on that.”

“You couldn’t have just learned to throw that sinker in a couple weeks. It’s not possible,” Verlander said. He sounded awed, dumbstruck, and it warmed Rick’s insides to hear _Verlander_ speaking of him in that kind of reverent tone. “Shitty location, but that was still a damn good pitch. You threw that like you’ve been throwing it your whole life.”

Rick laughed a little and shrugged, as if to say _I don’t know how I did it either_. His arm ached just a little bit, but it was the good kind of ache, an ache he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He stepped off the rubber and moved up the few feet to the white stripe that had been painted in the dirt path between the mound and home plate.

Cassidy tossed him a softball and then it was game time. Rick lobbed the ball up to the plate and Verlander slammed it over the makeshift, advertisement-covered fence for a leadoff home run.

The rest of Rick’s outing didn’t go much better and he was lifted midway through the first with two runners in scoring position and a three-run deficit. He probably would have come out after the inning was over anyway, but that didn’t make him feel any better.

Rick couldn’t explain how or why, but lobbing that softball up there after throwing a fastball from sixty feet and six inches was just _different_. He wasn’t used to throwing a ball like that, and he couldn’t adjust. He could practically hear Leyland’s gruff, cigarette-weathered voice in the back of his mind, grumbling half-hearted encouragement at him as he trudged off the mound.

He headed down to the Tigers’ clubhouse to shower and change. As he passed by the video room, he noticed Ryan hunched over one of the laptops, poring over some clips.

Rick paused in the doorway and rapped on the doorframe. He watched from a distance as Ryan played a clip of a pitcher’s delivery forward and then backward. “Hey, Ryan.”

Ryan glanced over his shoulder at him before turning his attention back to the computer. “Hi, Erica. How’s the arm feeling?” Ryan clicked the little red x in the corner of a window and it blinked off the screen. He swiveled in his office chair to face Rick and crossed his arms behind his head.

“It’s feeling pretty good,” Rick said, rubbing at his elbow. “You not participating?”

Ryan shrugged, flicked his gaze away from Rick. “Lloyd said I’d be pinch hitting today. If they needed me.” He swiveled back around, shut the laptop, and got out of the chair. “They’ve got more than enough pitchers for this thing.”

Ryan brushed past Rick, head down, and slipped out the door. Rick couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but Ryan seemed _off_. He followed Ryan into the clubhouse, where he was sitting in front of his locker.

“You okay?”

Ryan waved a hand at him, dismissively. “I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Rick didn’t believe him, though. He knew Ryan well enough that he could tell when something was bothering him. He kind of wanted to call him out on it too, but he wasn’t Ryan’s best friend anymore. He was an acquaintance, and only because he was technically dating Ryan’s teammate.

“Something on your mind?” Ryan asked, his tone dry. He’d pulled an iPad out of his locker and was balancing it on his knees as he tapped at the screen with his fingers.

Rick crossed his arms over his chest. “You seem weird.”

“I’m not weird,” Ryan grumbled down at his iPad. He stopped tapping at the screen and looked up at Rick. “Why are you hanging around here, anyways?”

“I was gonna shower, change, and go up to Max’s suite,” Rick said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Ryan’s mouth curled into a not-smile. “Oh, okay. Tell him I said hi.”

“Look, Ryan, what’s going—” Rick began, but Ryan interrupted him.

“I’m not having this conversation with you.” He stood and shoved his iPad back into his locker.

“Excuse me?” Rick tightened his hands into fists in his pockets.

“You _know_ what I mean,” Ryan said, giving Rick a cold look. His cheek twitched and he seemed to visibly fight the tic. When he spoke again, his voice was calm, almost robotic. “We’re not going to do this now, not here. I don’t want—”

The clubhouse doors creaked open—badly in need of an oiling, apparently—and Rick spun around. Emily looked at both of them and frowned, before quickly pasting a phony smile on her face. She stepped around Rick to get to Verlander’s locker.

“What’s going on, you guys?” Emily rooted around Verlander’s locker and came up with a small glass bottle of cologne.

“Nothing,” Rick said.

“You seem a little tense.” Emily nodded to Ryan.

“I’m fine,” Ryan snapped at her, tugging the hood of his gray sweatshirt over his head. “I’ll see you girls later.” He walked briskly out of the clubhouse and slammed the doors behind him.

Rick looked after him. It almost seemed as if Ryan—but that couldn’t be possible. No one knew, no one _could_ know. Ryan was just pissed off about something else and Rick had exacerbated it somehow.

“Erica, you okay?”

Rick felt Emily’s hand on his shoulder and he turned around. “Oh, yeah. That thing with Ryan, that was nothing. We just got into an argument, that’s all.” Rick forced a smile.

“Uh huh,” Emily said, nodding slowly, slipping her hand away. She tucked the bottle of Verlander’s cologne in her pocket. “I didn’t really come here for Justin’s cologne. I came here to find you.”

“Yeah?” Rick asked, taking a deep breath to calm himself. His life as Erica Dente, such as it was, flashed before his eyes. Rick had never considered that his cover could be blown, not by Ryan, and certainly not by Emily.

“Yeah,” she said, gentling her tone. “Is there—is there something going on with Ryan?”

“Nothing’s going on with Ryan,” Rick said, rubbing his hand across his forehead. “I don’t understand.”

Emily sighed. “I saw you guys out together, remember?”

Rick gaped at her in disbelief. “Wait, you think Ryan and I are screwing around?”

“In not so many words, yes,” she said.

Rick pressed his hands over his face and started to laugh. “I don’t believe this.”

“You should be happy I’m coming to you with my suspicions first rather than just going right to Max or Vanessa,” Emily huffed, sounding a little miffed. “I wouldn’t have said anything if I wasn’t pretty sure.”

“There’s absolutely nothing going on between me and Ryan,” Rick said, unable to keep from laughing some more. “I don’t get why you’d even think there was.”

Emily sighed and wrung her hangs. “I told you, I saw you guys together at that bar that one time. You looked—I don’t know, you looked too comfortable. Like, more than just acquaintances.”

 _He’s my best friend_ , Rick thought, but, no, that wasn’t really true anymore. It was true of Rick Porcello and Ryan Perry, but not of _Erica Dente_ and Ryan Perry. His old life really was slipping away from him, and he felt like he’d been hit over the head with the realization. He felt staggered.

“I can assure you nothing is happening or will happen between me and Ryan,” Rick said.

“Well, all right,” Emily said, but she sounded reluctant, like she didn’t quite believe him. “I guess this was just a misunderstanding.”

“Yeah,” Rick said, offering Emily a weak smile, “a misunderstanding.”

It felt like more than that, though. It felt like another door closing.

-

Rick couldn’t get to sleep.

His mind had been racing all night, turning over the conversations with Ryan and Emily until he’d developed a headache pressing hotly right behind his eyes. Plus, the weird, unexplainable feeling he’d had a few weeks earlier was back, raising goosebumps up and down his arms.

He knew he wasn’t going to change back. He knew certain things that were just instinctive, automatic, things that had practically become a part of him, a part of his blood. He knew that he wasn’t going to change back, knew it the same way he knew how to hold a baseball.

Max was lying on his stomach next to Rick in bed, face smashed into a pillow. Rick thought about waking him so he could unload what was currently on his mind, but he wasn’t sure what he’d even say. Max had been there through just about everything, heard what was on Rick’s mind, tried to guess what was on Rick’s mind when he wasn’t sharing. He couldn’t think of anything Max didn’t know about him.

“I can practically hear you thinking,” Max mumbled, smacking his lips noisily.

Rick glanced over at him. Max had rolled onto his side, looked like he’d been watching Rick for a while, eyelids droopy with sleep. “Sorry. I’ll try to keep it down,” he said, corner of his mouth ticking up in a hint of a smile.

“What’s on your mind?” Max rubbed his fists against his eyes and yawned.

“Go back to bed,” Rick said, reaching out and tugging on Max’s wrists, pulling his hands away from his eyes.

“I’m wide awake now.” Max grinned at him dopily and flexed his wrists in Rick’s grip. “So, what’s up?”

Rick rolled his eyes and let go of Max’s wrists. “Are you sure you want to get into this?”

“Absolutely,” Max said, still grinning at him.

Rick couldn’t help but smile a little, in spite of what was weighing his mind down. “So, what if I told you I thought Ryan had figured everything out?”

Max stared back at him, grin fading to a small smile and then disappearing completely. “What?”

“I think Ryan knows,” Rick said, tugging at the comforter. He hooked his pinky finger in a hole in the fabric and pulled at it.

Max reached out, covered Rick’s hand with his own. “That’s impossible, Rick.”

“He was acting so weird. You didn’t see him,” Rick said.

Max rubbed a hand over his face. “I chatted with him a little bit before the game. He seemed fine.”

“I ran into him in the video room later. I think he was looking at video of me.” Rick tore at the hole in the comforter some more.

Max reached out, wrapped his hand around Rick’s wrist. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe he was just pissed he couldn’t get into the game or something, and he took it out on you.”

Rick sighed and let his head drop onto Max’s shoulder. He wanted so badly to believe, to accept what Max was telling him, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He knew—the same way he knew _that night_ , nearly half a year ago, that his life was going to be irrevocably changed when he woke up the following morning—that Ryan knew, that Ryan had it all figured out.

“It seems like a pretty big leap,” Max continued, his tone gentle, his fingers curled around the curve of Rick’s hip.

“Didn’t _you_ make the same big leap?” Rick countered, twisting in his embrace to look him in the eyes.

Max ducked his head. “That’s different, Rick, you told me—”

“But you said you felt like you always knew,” Rick said, tipping Max’s chin back up. He curled his fingers in, against his palm, and rubbed his knuckles against the sandpapery stubble on Max’s cheek.

“Well, yeah. But, but that doesn’t mean Ryan would be the same way,” Max stammered, cheeks tinted just the slightest hint of red.

“I guess not, but you had to be there, you had to see how he was,” Rick said. He opened his hand, fanned his fingers out over Max’s cheek, gently.

“I guess,” Max agreed. He reached up, wrapped a hand around Rick’s wrist, but didn’t move his hand away. “I could talk to him, if you want.”

“What would you even say?”

“I don’t know, maybe poke around to see what he knows,” Max said.

Rick rolled his eyes and dropped his hand in his lap. “No, let me. I can just invite myself over to his and Vanessa’s place or something, girl’s night.”

Max shifted closer to Rick, put his arm back around his waist. “What about me?”

Rick lay back down in bed and tugged Max along with him. “What about you,” he asked, resting a hand on Max’s chest.

“I could be useful for reconnaissance, I think,” Max said, running his fingers lightly over Rick’s bent elbow.

Rick smiled at him and hooked his leg with Max’s under the covers. Max smiled back. “Maybe,” Rick said, putting his head down on his pillow and closing his eyes. He felt Max’s fingertips ghost over his cheek and then slip away. “I guess we’ll see.”

-

Vanessa had thought a girl’s night would be a great idea. So great, in fact, that she invited both Rick _and_ Max over: Rick so that they could do girl’s night things together, and Max to keep Ryan company.

Rick could not see any way in which the evening wouldn’t be a complete disaster, but he was trying to keep his inner pessimist in check for the time being. He legitimately liked Vanessa, and he wanted the night to be a success, even if it was for mostly selfish reasons.

Vanessa was a great cook and had whipped up a bunch of Mexican and Mediterranean delicacies for the two of them, along with the requisite bowls of chips and dip, Italian sausage still sizzling from the frying pan, and potato salad for Ryan and Max. A preseason football game was blaring on the TV; Rick could make out a clash of silver and blue against orange on the screen.

Ryan took Rick’s jacket from him before he had a chance to protest, and Vanessa grabbed onto his hand, gushing about the food and the latest gossip. Rick shot Max a look over her head; Max hiked his eyebrows in response and gave him a playful wink before going off to find Ryan.

“How do you feel about Greek food? Oh, did you hear about Rosangel? She went into premature labor, Miguel’s gonna have to leave the team for a few days,” Vanessa prattled as she tugged Rick over to the couch. He could hear Ryan’s and Max’s voices coming in faintly from the kitchen. She sat heavily on the couch and pulled Rick with her.

“Uh, Greek food’s fine,” Rick said, shrugging and sitting next to Vanessa. “And, uh, I hope she’s all right.”

“I’m sure she’ll be fine. I said a little prayer for her.” Vanessa finally let go of Rick’s hand to rearrange her skirt. “So, what’s new with you? I haven’t seen you since I got back from Vegas!”

Rick nodded and offered Vanessa a smile. “I’m all right, nothing much. How was Vegas?”

“It was _amazing_. I’m so bummed Ry couldn’t come with me, but he had his rehab thing and all,” Vanessa said, flipping her hair behind her shoulders, bracelets jangling like door chimes. “I feel really good about this shoot, Erica. I don’t know, I just do.” She paused and regarded Rick with an almost critical eye. “You know, I think you could do some modeling too, if you wanted to.”

Rick laughed sharply and shook his head. “Oh, God, no.”

“Why not? You’ve got the look,” Vanessa said.

“It’s just not for me, sorry.” Rick scuffed his feet on the carpet, feeling awkward. He knew, objectively, that he was attractive. Max seemed to be attracted to him and he got comments or looks sometimes, but compared to Vanessa? No way.

“Well, if you change your mind, just call me.” Vanessa glanced at the TV. “Ugh, Romo.”

Rick looked too. One of the Cowboys collided with a Denver Bronco and went flying out of bounds, into a sea of teammates on the sidelines. “Big football fan?”

“Oh yeah,” Vanessa said, grinning. “My daddy’s a _huge_ Cowboys fan. Ry was kind of into the Cardinals when we first started going out, but my daddy fixed that right off the bat.” She laughed and ran a hand through her long hair. Rick felt like they were in a beer commercial for a second and almost did the same thing, but he refrained.

“That’s cool.” Hearing Vanessa talk about her dad in that affectionate tone made Rick’s heart hurt. He thought about his dad and brothers, probably watching the Jets game together in the den or something.

The heavy thud of footsteps burst through his thoughts, scattering them, and he looked up. Ryan and Max thumped through the kitchen, beers in hand, and joined them in the family room.

“Sounds like you girls are having too much fun without us,” Ryan said, squeezing next to Vanessa and slinging his arm across the back of the couch, behind her shoulders.

Max took a seat in an armchair next to the couch. “They were probably talking about us behind our backs,” Max said, resting his beer on his knee.

Ryan looked over Vanessa’s head, to Rick. “How you doing over there?”

“Just fine, thanks.” Rick gave him a thumbs up and a fake smile.

He needed to find out what and how much Ryan knew, but he definitely couldn’t do it when all four of them were in the same room.

“Who’s hungry?” Vanessa got up and brushed her skirt off. “We also have games, if you’re interested.”

“Games?” Rick raised his eyebrows.

Vanessa laughed. “Like, board games, silly. And Jeopardy for the Wii!”

“C’mon, V, give ’em a chance to breathe,” Ryan teased, reaching out and catching her hand in his.

Vanessa rolled her eyes at him and twisted her hand away. “Okay, okay. Just trying to be a good hostess.”

“You’re a great hostess,” Ryan assured her.

Vanessa cooed and bent down to kiss him on the forehead. Ryan tilted his head up, eyes closed, and smiled. They looked happy, and it made Rick feel warm inside, just a little bit, to see with his own eyes how content Ryan was.

Vanessa finally broke away and went to the kitchen.

The earth hadn’t stopped spinning when Rick disappeared. Vanessa and Ryan were proof of that. Maybe it had stopped for just a moment, but it had obviously righted itself and Rick could almost believe that he might start moving again too.

“I think I’m gonna grab another beer,” Max announced, picking up his empty bottle and getting out of the chair. He paused by the couch and grazed his fingers briefly in Rick’s hair before pulling back and exiting.

Rick watched his retreating back until he’d disappeared into the kitchen.

“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Ryan said.

Rick looked over at him. “Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay, I was just making an observation,” he said, shrugging. He picked his half-empty bottle of beer off the coffee table and took a pull.

Rick turned his body toward Ryan and clasped his hands over his knees. “Hey, Ryan, could we talk about something, it’s kind of been on my mind since the charity softball game.” Rick was rambling now, and he closed his eyes, took several deep breaths and counted to seven before opening them again.

Ryan was looking at him, his eyebrows knit, deep in thought. “Okay, sure.”

“I don’t know how to say this,” Rick said, laughing uncomfortably and unclasping his hands, flexing them. He stared intently at the backs of his hands, at the fading calluses.

“What’s up?” Ryan sounded concerned now.

Rick closed his eyes briefly, prayed to whoever was listening for strength. “I know you know.”

“Know what?” Ryan asked.

“The truth,” Rick said, looking at him. He curled his hands into fists over his knees. “It’s obvious you figured it all out. I don’t know how you _did_ , but kudos.”

“What are you talking about? Is this—is this about the thing in the video room?” Ryan asked. He sounded small, confused.

Rick nodded, relief washing over him. “I wanted to tell you before that, but I—I don’t know, I guess I didn’t think you’d believe me. I mean, I didn’t even believe it at first, then I kind of freaked out about it for a while. I wanted to tell you for a really long time, but I didn’t think you’d understand. And it’s taken a long time to get used to, but—this is who I am now, and now you know.”

Ryan stared at him with uncomprehending eyes, ran his tongue over his bottom lip. “What are you even talking about, Erica? That’s _not_ what I was pissed off about. I was pissed off ’cause of some stuff Emily said to me about the two of us and, I mean, yeah. It was shitty to take it out on you, and I apologize for that. But I was just being an asshole.” Ryan wrapped his hand back around his beer bottle and took another long pull, draining the rest of it.

“You—you didn’t figure it out,” Rick said, more to himself than in question. “I thought you knew.”

“I really have no idea what the hell you’re talking about right now,” Ryan said, staring at his empty bottle. He looked at Rick. “Mind filling me in?”

Rick’s face felt hot, his skin tight and uncomfortable, and his throat ached. He’d been so _sure_ about Ryan. Maybe he’d wanted it to be true so badly that he convinced himself it was. Rick pressed his hands over his face and gulped in air. “I thought you’d figured out that, that—it’s me, I’m Rick.”

“What?”

Rick lowered his hands and met Ryan’s eyes. “I’m Rick.”

“I don’t—you’re not making any sense,” Ryan said quickly, getting up from the couch and grabbing his empty bottle. “You look a little red, I’ll get you some water.”

Rick jumped up too. “I’m fine, Ryan. Just listen to me.” He put a hand up, palm out, in an appeal.

Rick tightened his hand around the bottle, but he didn’t move to sit back down. His eyes were wary, and his whole body was tense, like he was preparing for flight. “Fine.”

“I’m Rick. Your best friend, that Rick, the one that’s been missing for half a year. I—I’m not dead, I never went to Mexico. Well, I was supposed to, but this—” Rick gestured to his tits to illustrate his point “—whole thing happened before I could go. And then I kind of panicked and hopped in my car and ran off.”

Ryan shook his head slowly. “No.”

“Yeah, actually,” Rick said.

“Whatever game you’re running—”

Rick winced; the words were familiar, painful. “It’s not a game. It’s really me, Ryan. Here.” Rick reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, opening it to his phony state I.D. He held it out for Ryan to inspect.

Ryan took it and slid the I.D. card from the plastic covering. “Erica Patricia Dente?”

“Yeah,” Rick said, dropping his arms to his sides. “I’ve never been that creative.”

Ryan shoved the I.D. back in the wallet and practically tossed it at Rick. “There are probably a lot of Dentes in Jersey. This doesn’t prove anything.”

“You remember rookie year, that girl you brought home? Amy, I think her name was—”

“Amelia,” Ryan corrected, flatly.

“Right, Amelia. And she was all about the Camcorder,” Rick said.

“Rick could’ve told you that,” Ryan said, waving a hand dismissively.

“ _Rick_ disappeared before Max and I got together,” he said. It felt odd to refer to himself in the third person.

“Well, maybe Max told you, then,” Ryan snapped.

Rick crossed his arms over his chest. “I never told Max about that.”

Ryan was silent for what seemed like a long time, eyes fixed on something on the floor that only he could see. Finally, he looked up at Rick and cleared his throat. “I think you should probably leave. Max too.”

“Ryan—”

“I think it’s real shitty of you to use my best friend like this,” Ryan said, sounding calm. “I don’t know what kind of a scam you’re pulling, but it’s shitty and you need to leave.”

“I’m not scamming you,” Rick insisted, but Ryan cut him short.

“Then what the fuck is this?” Ryan pointed at Rick with his bottle. “Rick is, was my best friend and you’re fucking using his disappearance for—what? What exactly are you trying for?”

“I’m not trying for anything,” Rick insisted. “I just thought you knew.”

Ryan rubbed a hand over his face and down, across his chin. “You thought I knew that you’re—you’re apparently my missing best friend. My missing _male_ best friend who’s living as a woman now.” He let out a jagged, painful-sounding laugh. “God, this is un-fucking-believable.”

Rick closed his eyes again. He couldn’t believe he’d ever thought this would be a good idea. What had he been hoping for?

“I mean,” Ryan continued, sounding almost hysterical, “ _maybe_ I could’ve bought the whole transsexual thing if you were the right height, but you’re not even, like, six feet. Lady, you need some help.”

Rick opened his eyes. Ryan was looking at him with a mixture of revulsion and pity, lip curled. “I’m sorry I said anything.”

“Jesus, fuck, so am I.” Ryan laughed again. It sounded like it was torn out of him by force.

A hand closed over Rick’s shoulder and he turned. Max pulled his hand back and tucked both into the pockets of his jeans. Rick wondered how much he’d heard but had a suspicion, from the sadness of his eyes and the sagging of his shoulders, that he’d heard enough. Vanessa was lingering in the doorway to the kitchen, an oven mitt on one hand.

When Max finally broke the uncomfortable silence, his voice was quiet, nearly a whisper. “C’mon, Ricky, we should go.”

Rick nodded and turned away, and Max’s arm wound around his shoulders. He could hear Ryan moving behind them, the gentle thudding of his footsteps as he trailed a safe distance behind, and Rick wanted to look back.

He didn’t let himself.

-

Rick was still sitting on the cool, hard ground in the backyard, under the filmy glow of the back porch light, when the sliding glass door opened. He glanced over his shoulder; Max stepped out of the kitchen and shut the door behind him, footsteps creaking over wooden floorboards.

“You’ve been out here for a while,” Max said, hopping off the porch and landing on his hands and knees in the patchy grass next to Rick.

“I know. I’ve just been thinking,” Rick said. The light cast Max in a warm, buttery glow. He reached out and touched his cheek; Max’s skin was warm, and the Michigan night was cool against the back of Rick’s hand. A breeze rustled faintly in Rick’s loose hair.

“I know you wanted him to know,” Max said, turning his head slightly, kissing Rick’s palm.

Rick lowered his hand. “How?”

“I just, I know you’re lonely. Even with me and Vanessa, and Emily, kind of, I know you’re lonely, Rick,” Max said. “I wanted that for you too, I wanted Ryan to believe you. I’m sorry he—I’m just sorry.”

Rick looked down, tugged at some tufts of grass and ripped them out of the ground. “It was silly, though, thinking he’d figured it all out. I should’ve known better.”

“Whether or not you should’ve known better is irrelevant,” Max said, leaning in and pressing his mouth against Rick’s shoulder, for a brief moment. Rick could feel Max’s breath through the thin fabric of his shirt. “You were hopeful, you—you just _hoped_. You shouldn’t, not _ever_ , be ashamed of that.”

“I guess,” Rick allowed, reluctantly. “I felt like I had a chance, you know? A chance to get some of my old life back?”

“I know.” Max put his arm around Rick’s shoulders and pulled him close.

Rick sighed deeply and dropped his head against Max’s shoulder. “Sometimes I hate this so much,” he said, drawing shapeless patterns on Max’s chest with his finger.

“If I knew what to do so you could have your old life back, I’d do it,” Max said, quietly, fiercely into Rick’s hair. “I’d change it all in a second, a _millisecond_ , if I just knew how.”

Rick pulled away to stare at him. Max lowered his eyes, wouldn’t meet his gaze. “But what about this? _Us_?”

“I’d give it up without a second thought if it meant you’d be happy.” Max finally looked at him. There was a heaviness to him, in his eyes, but his mouth was smiling.

Rick’s eyes started to itch and he rubbed at them with the heels of his hands. “I’m happy,” he said.

Max laughed softly, disbelieving. “You don’t have to say that.”

“No, I am,” he said, lowering his hands, grabbing onto Max’s. “Honestly. Okay? I am.”

He felt light, exhilarated, as if a weight had lifted from his shoulders. There was still a lingering heaviness, but he didn’t feel like he was getting crushed by a giant boulder or a ton of little rocks anymore. He could breathe without pain.

Max tightened his fingers around Rick’s. “You’re—you’re really important to me, Rick. I hope you know that.”

“I do,” he said, and he meant it too.

Max leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. “Good.”

Rick closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again. Max was sitting in front of him, still smiling, his eyes still a little bit sad. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Being here.” Rick grabbed him by the hands and jumped to his feet, dragged Max across the grass a foot or two. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

Max laughed and got up, brushing blades of grass off his pants. “Okay. Let’s go inside.”

-

A couple weeks later, Ryan came to the apartment unannounced.

Max was out doing some grocery shopping, and Rick said just that: “Max’s out grocery shopping. What’s up?”

Ryan stood in the doorway and fiddled with the plastic snap on the back of a Tigers cap, looking for all the world like he’d rather be somewhere else. “Can we talk?” He finished adjusting the cap and pulled it on, down over his eyes.

“Sure. You want something to drink?” Rick stepped away from the door and motioned for Ryan to follow him to the kitchen.

“Uh, sure, I guess. Bud’s fine, if you got it.”

Rick went to the fridge and opened it, dug around until he found a bottle of Budweiser and handed it off to Ryan. “There. Bottle opener’s in the drawer.” Rick grabbed a carton of orange juice and went to get a glass from the cupboard. “What did you want to talk about?”

Ryan opened the drawer and pulled out the bottle opener. “The thing from a few weeks ago,” he mumbled.

“The thing from a few weeks ago,” Rick echoed. He poured himself a glass of juice and stuck the carton back in the fridge. “That clears things right up.”

“You know what I mean,” Ryan said.

Rick sipped some orange juice. “Oh, probably. I’m just being difficult.”

Ryan sighed and took a long pull from his bottle. “You said stuff about Rick.”

“And that’s why you’re here. You’ve been thinking about it,” he concluded.

Ryan shrugged and gave a slight nod. “I guess I have.” He glanced at Rick, his look wavering, uncertain. “I don’t understand. I—I guess I just don’t understand.”

“There’s a lot I don’t understand either,” Rick said.

“I mean, I _want_ to believe Rick’s alive so bad, but this? This is just . . .” Ryan shook his head and took another pull from his bottle. “This is unbelievable.”

Rick finished his juice and left the glass on the counter. “I know.”

“That’s it? ‘I know’?” Ryan said, sounding incredulous. He let out a sharp, discordant laugh and finished off the last of his beer, thumping the empty bottle down on the counter beside Rick’s glass. Ryan swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and fixed Rick with a look. “You do look a lot like Rick, I’ll give you that.”

“You still don’t believe me?” Rick asked.

Ryan was silent for a few minutes. “Does Max believe you? Does he really think you’re—you’re—” Ryan twisted his mouth and chewed on the inside of his cheek, unable to force the words out.

Rick nodded. “He does.”

Ryan rubbed his hands over his face and let his arm flop limply to his sides. He tilted his head back, fixed his eyes on the ceiling for a moment. Finally, he looked at Rick. “You know everyone thinks Rick got killed in Mexico?”

Rick stared at him. “What?”

“The last anyone heard, Rick was gonna spend some time in Mexico before he started up his winter workout program,” Ryan said, with a soft, broken-sounding laugh. “Police think he got mixed up with some drug runners or whatever, found out he was a rich ballplayer and killed him for his money.”

“They ever find his car? They ever find his name on a flight manifest going to Mexico?” Rick challenged, hands on his hips.

Ryan shook his head. “They never found anything.” He considered. “That doesn’t make your story any more believable, though.”

Rick crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the counter. “What do I have to do to prove that it’s me?”

Ryan started to laugh, rubbed his hands over his face again. He left them over his eyes for a few seconds. “Jesus, I wish I _did_ believe you. Anything’s gotta be better than Rick being—being _dead_.” Ryan spit the word out like a curse, frowning deeply. “I just can’t. You’re not him. You can’t be.”

“And nothing I say or do’ll convince you otherwise.” Rick turned away, looked out the kitchen window at the scarred old tree he’d been throwing baseballs at for the last six and a half months.

“This just doesn’t _happen_. You don’t just _become_ someone else.”

“It does, it happened to me,” Rick said, quietly. A baseball was sitting on the windowsill over the sink and he leaned over, picked it up and started rolling it from hand to hand to occupy them.

Ryan shoved his hands deep in his pockets and started pacing. “Rick’s, Rick was my best friend.” He stopped and turned to look at Rick. “I’ve spent the last, like, six months trying to prepare myself for the news that he’s gone forever. I’ve been waiting for that phone call ever since.”

Rick nodded and bowed his head, fixed on the red stitches under his fingers. “I’m sorry.” It was silly, meaningless, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Ryan moved closer, his steps light and tentative, as if he thought he should be afraid of Rick. “If you’re really who you say you are, why didn’t you go to Rick’s—your parents, or the police?”

“The same reason I didn’t go to you,” Rick said, looking up, meeting Ryan’s gaze. “I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

Ryan’s eyes flicked away, to the side. “But you went to Scherzer. You honestly thought _he’d_ believe you?”

Rick looked down again and ticked his fingernails along the baseball’s seams. “I don’t really know why I went to Max first. I was freaking out. I just hopped in my car and ran away.” He fit his fingers in the sinker grip. “It was kinda like a farewell tour, I guess. Drive from Jersey to Mexico, and have a mental breakdown on some of my teammates along the way.”

Ryan rocked back on his heels and tugged his hands through his hair. “Okay.”

“I was gonna see you too,” Rick said. “You were gonna be my last stop before I drove off to Mexico forever, or whatever.”

“Why’d you change your mind?” Ryan asked, dropping a hand on the countertop with a slap.

Rick squeezed onto the ball. “I decided to drive to Lakeland instead. I hung out there until—”

“Until Spring Training,” Ryan finished, something sparking in his eyes. “I talked to you. You let me think you were someone else.”

“Yeah,” Rick said.

Ryan laughed, looked up at the ceiling. “This is so unbelievable.”

“I know,” Rick said. He set the ball down and rolled it toward Ryan’s hand. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss my parents, or my brothers. Or you.”

Ryan wrapped the ball in his hand. “I still don’t believe you,” he said, mostly to the baseball in his hand. He tossed it back to Rick and pushed away from the counter. “I should probably leave.”

Rick nodded. He wanted to say something to get him to open his eyes, to stay, but he couldn’t. He had nothing. “Okay.” Rick paused, twisted his hands together, fumbling for something else to say. “I’m sorry.”

Ryan edged toward the kitchen door, stole a glance Rick’s way. “I’m sorry too.”

Rick followed Ryan out, told himself he was seeing him to the door. Ryan stood there and looked back at Rick, hands curled loosely at his sides, expression inscrutable. After a few moments of contemplative silence, Ryan turned and left.

Rick shut the door gently behind him.

-

In the backyard, Rick had fashioned a makeshift pitcher’s mound out of dirt. He wasn’t sure if it was quite up to official Major League standards, but he didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was that it was a pitcher’s mound, and it was his.

When Rick didn’t go on roadtrips with Max and the team, or he had some spare time, he was out in the backyard, throwing an array of pitches at the old maple tree. It had stood in admirably as a backstop, and was only showing a little bit of wear after nearly a season’s length of abuse.

When he took to the mound, he went to that place he used to go to when he was starting, a pocket in his mind where nothing could get to him, where nothing could even touch him.

Sometimes, it helped.

Rick toed the dirt, ball held loosely at his thigh. He could feel sweat dampening the hair at the back of his neck. A light breeze ruffled through leaves that were just beginning to change.

He ran through a familiar scenario in his mind—Thome in the batter’s box, Avila laying down the signs—and tucked the ball into his glove.

“Hey.”

Rick looked over his shoulder. Max stood in the doorway that led to the kitchen, an open beer in one hand.

“Ryan came by earlier,” Rick said, looking back at the battered tree trunk. He rolled the ball around in his glove until he had it in the grip for the slider.

“How’d that go?” Max slid the screen door shut behind him, came onto the deck. Rick heard the grass crunch softly under his feet.

“Could’ve gone better, could’ve gone a whole lot worse,” Rick said, stepping off the rubber.

“Are you all right?” Max asked.

“I guess,” Rick said. He fell silent for a few minutes, left it at that. He glanced at Max side-long. “You’re distracting me.”

“I know,” Max said, taking a sip of beer. He lowered his hand, let the bottle dangle from his fingers. “Can I play too?”

“Huh?” Rick held his glove against his chest.

Max set his beer down and cupped his hands, held them out to Rick. “I never get to catch you.” He waggled his fingers.

“You sure you wanna? The tree’s been doing a fine job as catcher,” Rick said, suppressing a smile.

Max went over and leaned against the trunk. “I think I’ll manage.” He dropped into a catcher’s crouch. “Take it easy on me, I don’t have a glove.”

“I don’t take it easy on anyone.” Rick rolled his eyes and lobbed the ball in, anyway. It bounced a couple times in the dirt and Max dropped to his knees to block it.

He picked it up and tossed it back. “Slider,” he said, sounding pleased.

“Yeah. I’ve been working on that one.” Rick flapped his glove and caught Max’s return throw. He stepped off the mound and slipped his glove off, going over to Max and pressing it against his chest. “I’m gonna bring the heater now.”

Max grabbed onto his wrist before he could leave and pulled him on top of him. They both tumbled onto the grass and the dirt, Rick’s glove between them. Max looked triumphant, happy, and he pressed a sloppy kiss against Rick’s jawline. “Like I haven’t heard that before.”

“You’re ruining the moment.” Rick looked down at him, rubbed his thumb over one of Max’s wispy eyebrows. He felt good, maybe even happy too.

Max’s arm crept around Rick’s waist. “I know.”

He kissed Max quickly and patted the glove against his chest, wrapped his hands around it. “C’mon. Let’s go. You’re wasting my time.” Rick grinned and winked at him, and Max grinned back.

“You’re the boss.” Max helped Rick to his feet.

Rick grabbed the ball from him and retreated to the mound, rolled it around in his hand, felt the stitches under his fingers. Everything, in this moment, felt right: the ball in his hand, the dirt under his feet, Max waiting for him to deliver the pitch.

Max leaned back against the tree and slid the glove on his hand, punched a fist into it and worked the laces. He opened the glove and shook it a little bit, as if to encourage Rick to hit his target.

Rick kicked his leg, pivoted, and fired home.

**Author's Note:**

> The author of this piece intends no insult, slander, or copyright infringement, and is not profiting from this work. This story is a complete work of fiction and does not necessarily reflect on the nature of the individuals featured. This is for entertainment purposes only. If you found this story while Googling your name or the names of your friends, hit the back button now.


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